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SHAKE SPEAEE, 

FEOM AN AMEEICAN POINT OF VIEW; 



IKClTTDIN-a 



AN INQUIRY AS TO HIS EELIGIOUS FAITH, 
AND HIS KNOWLEDGE OF LAW: 



THE BACONIAN THEORY CONSIDERED. 



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GEORGE WILKES. 

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NEW YORK: 
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 

549 AND 551 BROADWAY. 

1877. 

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f^NTEBED, according to Act of Congress, in tlie year 1877, 

By D. APPLETON & CO., 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at "WasMngton, 



PREFACE. 

The following Essays were originally addressed to a public 
consisting for the most part of American readers : and it was 
the intention of the author to publish them firsts in a collected 
fornj, inthe United States. It, however^ having become apparent, 
in the course of his researches, that it would be advisable to 
consult the British libraries, he concluded to issue the work in 
London. This was the more desirable, because a judgment 
rendered from the fountain head of English criticism, on what 
may be deemed a conspicuously English subject, would be more 
authoritative and satisfactory than if given from any other 
source. The author, therefore, takes this opportunity to say 
that the most rigorous criticism will not be unwelcome ; not, 
indeed, from any vain confidence in his own views, but because 
they are put forward in good faith, and in order to elicit truth 
concerning a genius who is the richest inheritance of the intel- 
lectual world. Should, indeed, his views be controverted, the 
author must even in that event be a gainer in common with the 
other admirers of Shakespeare ; for it can never be a true source 
of mortification to relinquish opinions in favour of those which 
are shown to be better. 

Presenting these pages, therefore, rather as a series of inquiries 
than as dogmatic doctrine, the author strives to support them by 
only such an amount of controversy as is legitimately due from 
one who invites the public to a new discussion. 

G. W. 



CONTENTS. 

— ♦ — 

GENERAL CIRCUMSTANCES, 

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL. 

CHAPTER I. 

PAGE 

The Eesponsibilities of Genius 1 

CHAPTEE II. 
Shakespbaee's Eaelt Life . . 6 

CHAPTEE III. 
LoED Bacon 13 

CHAPTEE IV. 
William Shakespeaee 18 

CHAPTEE V. 
Shakespeaee's Pbesonal Chaeacteeistics 28 

CHAPTEE VI. 
The Eeligion op the Shakespeaee Pamilt . . . . , 34 

CHAPTEE VII. 
Evening Mass .... 46 



vi Contents. 

CHAPTEE VIII. 

PAGE 

Shakespeaee's Contempt por Peotestants 62 

CHAPTER IX. 
Legal Acquieements of Shakespeaee 71 



THE TESTIMONY OF THE PLAYS. 

CHAPTEE X. 

" The Tempest " 81 

" Two Gentlemen of Veeona " 84 

CHAPTEE XI. 

" The Meeet Wives of Windsoe " .93 

" Measuee poe Measuee " 95 

CHAPTEE XII. 
" Comedy of Eeeoes " 106 

CHAPTER XIII. 
" The Meechant of Venice " 114 

CHAPTEE XIV. 
" The Meechant of Venice " (continued) 126 

CHAPTEE XV. 

" MtJCH Ado about Nothing " 136 

" As You Like It " 139 



Contents. vii 

CHAPTER XVI. 

PAGE 

" The Taming of the Sheew " 145 

" Love's Laboue's Lost " 147 

CHAPTER XVII. 
" All's Well that Ends Well " 151 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

" Twelfth Night ; or, What You Will " 160 

" The Winter's Tale " 164 

CHAPTER XIX. 

The Histoeical Plats 1' 1 

" King John " , ... 177 

CHAPTER XX. 
" RicHAED II." • • • • '182 

CHAPTER XXL 

"HeneyIV."— PaetI '196 

" Heney IV."— Paet II 199 

CHAPTER XXII. 
« Heney V." • -207 

CHAPTER XXIII. 
" King Heney VI."— Paet 1 220 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

« King HenIby VI."— Paet II. . . 227 

The Rebellion of Wat Tylee • • • 228 

' The Rebellion of Cade 232 

CHAPTER XXV. 
" King Henry VI."— Paet II.— Rebellion of Cade (continued) . 240 



vili Contents. 

CHAPTEE XXVI. 

PAGE 

" King Heney VI."— Part III 255 

" RiCHAED III." . .260 

CHAPTER XXVII. 
" King Henet VIII." 267 

CHAPTER XXVIII. 
The Teagedies. — " Teoilus and Ceessida " 278 

CHAPTER XXIX. 
" Timon of Athens " 288 

CHAPTER XXX. 
"COEIOIANUS" 292 

CHAPTER XXXI. 

" TiTTJS Andeonicus " .' . . . 313 

" Peeicles, Peince of Tyee " 322 

CHAPTER XXXII. 

" Macbeth " 327 

" Cymbeline " 331 

" Romeo and Juliet " 338 

CHAPTER XXXIII. 

" Julius CiESAE " 345 

" Antony AND Cleopatea " .'359 

CHAPTER XXXIV. 
" Othello " 363 

CHAPTER XXXV. 
" King Leae " 377 



^ Contetits. ix 

CHAPTER XXXVI. 

PAGE 

'^Hamlet" 397 

THE MUSICAL OH EUPHONIC TEST. 

SHAKESPEAllE AND BACON^S HESPECTIVE SENSE OF MELODY^ OE 
EAR EOU MUSIC. 

CHAPTER XXXYII. 
The Euphonic Test . 423 

CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
The Euphonic Test (continued) . . . . . . . 437 

CHAPTER XXXIX. 
Recapitulation and Conclusion 455 

POSTSCKIPT . . r t . . 462 



part h 
GENEKAL CIECUMSTANCES, 

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL. 



SHAKE SPEAEE, 

FROM AlSr AMERICAN POINT OF VIEW. 



CHAPTER I. 



THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF GENIUS. 



The C|jicstion as to the authorship of what arc known to the 
world as Shakespeare^s plays^ first raised in 185G, and projected 
in favour of Sir Prancis Bacon, did not attract much attention 
until some time after it was propounded. Indeed, I had not 
heard that the Shakespearian authorship of these plays ever had 
been doubted until the year 1867, when in the course of a con- 
versation with General B. P. Butler, he asked me whether I had 
read *^The Philosophy of Shakespeare's Plays Unfolded," by 
Delia Bacon— remarking-, at the same time, he thought her 
arguments to be of great force, and that he favourably regarded 
the Baconian theory. 

The judgment of so keen a critic for a moment staggered me, 
but the proposition was so utterly at variance with the settled 
convictions of my mind, that the influence of his opinion soon 
yielded to my prepossession^, and I readily attributed the 
General's Baconian inclination to a professional predilection in 
favour of one of his own craft. The question, therefore, when it 
was afterward raised by others, failed to engage my serious 
attention, until it was again broached to me, in Bacon's favour, 
by an American cavalry officer, during an afternoon lounge near 
Richmond, on the Thames, in the latter part of the summer of 
1874. Just about that time, there had appeared in the August 



2 Shakespeare, frotn an American Point of View. 

number of Fraser's Magazine an exceedingly ingenious article, 
written by a young American, under the title of " Who wrote 
Shakespeare ? '' and singularly enough my West Point friend 
and I accidentally met the author of this very article three nights 
afterwards, at a dinner party in London, which included a number 
of English and American literary men. 

On the following morning, I sought, at the bookstands, the 
magazine alluded to, but the edition having been exhausted, I was 
obliged to have recourse to the politeness of the author, who 
kindly furnished me with one of six supplementary proofs he had 
procured to be stricken off for his own use, before the forms 
had been distributed. 

Soon afterward, stimulated doubtless by this publication, the 
controversy as to the authorship of the Shakespeare plays spread 
to the United States, and, under the manipulation of the Ameri- 
can Press, elicited a flood of multifarious opinion. Amid this 
ocean of expression, the article in Fraser was by far the most 
notable for plausibility and force ; but what surprised me most 
in running through the views of all these writers was, that not 
one of them touched a fact which had long puzzled me concerning 
Shakespeare, and which had led me, several years before, to read 
his plays with laborious scrutiny, under the idea of writing an 
essay upon his character and principles, from an American point 
of view. Though not a blind worshipper of Shakespeare, I had 
always been among the warmest admirers of his genius, but I 
never had been able to comprehend why it was, that, unlike all 
the great geniuses of the world who had come before or after 
him, and who seem, as such, to have been deputized with the 
creative faculty of God, he should be the only one so deficient in 
that beneficent tenderness toward his race, so vacant of those 
sympathies which usually accompany intellectual power, as never 
to have been betrayed into one generous aspiration in favour of 
popular liberty. Nay, worse than this, worse than his servility 
to royalty and rank, we never find him speaking of the poor with 
respect, or alluding to the Avorking classes without detestation 
or contempt. We can understand these tendencies as existing in 
Lord Bacon, born as he was to privilege, and holding ofiice from 
a queen; but they seem utterly at variance with the natural 
instincts of a man who had sprung from the body of the people, 
and who, through the very pursuits of his father, and likewise 



The Responsibilities of Genius. 3 

from Lis own beginning, may be regarded as one of the working 
classes himself. 

Bacon, through his aristocratic training, and influenced by the 
monarchical system under which he served, may barely be for- 
given, by even his most extreme defenders, for his barrenness of 
that beneficence, which genius is delegated, as it were, to bring 
to us from Heaven ; but the son of plain John Shakespeare has 
no such excuse. Dickens, who wrote mainly for the lowly; 
Byron, who, though a noble, fought for human liberty ; Cervantes, 
Junius, Eugene Sue, Le Sage, De Foe, Walter Scott, Victor 
Hugo, Oliver Goldsmith, and Sheherezade — the never-to-be- 
forgotten Sheherezade, who talked to a Prince for a thousand and 
one nights in such sentiments as have made the literature of 
Arabia a hymn — never forgot the hopes and joys and distresses 
of the poor. Shakespeare alone of these elevated souls prefers 
to be the parasite of the rich and noble, and seldom, if ever, 
permits the humble to escape him without a derisive jest or 
sneer. 

William Shakespeare nevertheless possessed a larger share of 
the divine creative faculty than any other mortal ; and let it not 
be said that too much is claimed for this poetic attribute. If the 
characters produced by mortal imaginations have not souls for 
divine judgment, they certainly have forms and shapes for human 
comprehension and for penal criticism. They are as much of 
the world as the world is of us. Othello, Manfred, Aladdin, 
Quasimodo, Fleur de Marie, Gil Bias, Robinson Crusoe, Ras- 
selas, Micawber, Don Quixote, the Vicar of Wakefield, and 
Ivanhoe, are as actual to our appreciations as the real Mahomet, 
Csesar, Zenghis Khan, Napoleon, or Martin Luther ; as real, in 
fact, as are Vesuvius and ^Etna to those who have never seen 
them. And the manner, consequently, in which these fictitious 
characters are developed to the reader, imposes as great respon- 
sibilities upon their authors, in the way of morals, as do the just 
presentation of the truths of history. 

The singular oversight of so salient a point as Shakespeare^'s 
aristocratic tendencies, by the Baconians, may perhaps be 
accounted for by the fact that their theory is still quite new, the 
ground having first been broken by Delia Bacon, of Boston, as 
late as 1856, and only languidly followed since by a few Ameri- 
can lawyers and aristocratic Englishmen, severally stimulated by 



4 Shakespeare, from an American Point of Viezv. 

pride of profession, or conceit of cfiste. To tlie masses of the 
English people it is really a matter of no great importance 
whether one Englishman or another was the author of the 
Shakespearian dramas ; for the dust of two centuries has fallen 
so evenly on both of those who are now under our consideration, 
that all minor preferences are levelled out. With Americans, 
however, the question is somewhat different. 

The pamphlet of the American lady, who had been inspired 
to the Baconian theory doubtless by a mere pride of name, 
began to attract favourable attention from the English aristocracy 
in 1858, and some of its leaders brought themselves to the 
opinion, that it would be a good thing for the jpresilge of their 
order if the world could be made to believe that the great writer, 
who had dwarfed them all for over two hundred years, was a 
scion of their caste. It has always been the tendency of patrician 
politics, when the merit of the lowly-born cannot be underrated, 
to mask its origin by artfully recruiting it into its own ranks, so 
that talented poverty may file thereafter down the aisles of the 
future under the aspect of a lord. This policy has been so con- 
spicuous during the last hundred years, that there can hardly be 
a doubt that had the author of Othello lived a few generations 
later he would have figured upon the title-page of his immortal 
works as Lord Shakespeare, or Sir Williain at the least. The 
British nobility would have thus been spared the desire of 
adopting the American woman^s theory in transferring the glory 
of William Shakespeare to Sir Francis Bacon. 

Conspicuous among the noblemen who favoured the Baconian 
theory in England was (as we are informed by the article in 
Fraser) " Lord Palmerston, who maintained that the plays of 
Shakespeare were written by Lord Verulam (Sir Francis Bacon), 
who had passed them off under the name of an actor for fear of 
compromising his professional prospects and philosophic gravity .^^ 
On being opposed in this declaration (says the author of the 
article in Fraser) by the positive testimony of Ben Jonson as 
to Shakespeare's authorship, Palmerston replied, '' Oh, those 
fellows always stand up for one another, or perhaps Jonson '' 
(added his Lordship) " may have been deceived like the rest." 

Here was the weighty authority of two prominent statesmen 
and lawyers, Palmerston and Butler, relatively of England and 
America, fencing the very threshold of my inquiry; and it 



The Responsibilities of Genius. 5 

consequently behoved me to advance with wary footsteps into 
the shades of the enig-ma, and prove^ at the very outset^ if I 
desired to controvert them, that the author of the Shakespeare 
plays could not have been (like Bacon) either a statesman or a 
lawyer — a proof that must, of necessity, be sought from internal 
evidence furnished by the plays themselves, since all contem- 
porary testimony had left these points unsettled. The only 
means remaining, therefore, after the lapse of two hundred 
years, was to question the soids of the departed Titans, as 
they still live and breathe, within their respective imperishable 
pages. 



6 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View, 



CHAPTER II. 

Shakespeare's early life. 

One of the objects of tin's inquiry will be an attempt to establish 
the degree of difference, if any, in which the Shakespearian 
volume should be regarded, relatively, in England and America, 
as a family text-book ; and whether, as a household teacher, it 
should, among Americans, as with Englishmen, divide domestic 
reverence and authority almost with the Bible. And this 
inquiry will logically extend itself so as to comprehend the social 
and religious, as well as the political inculcations of the Shake- 
spearian volume. 

And following the inquiry still further, we shall endeavour to 
ascertain what difference, if any, in " musical ear," or sense of 
music, is exhibited relatively in the Plays and Essays ; so as to 
enable us to determine, with almost absolute certainty, whether 
one and the same man could have been the author of both. In 
this latter branch of my inquiry I shall be obliged to depend 
largely upon the musical experts. 

Dealing with almost any other poet than the author of Shake- 
speare's Plays, it would be a matter of comparative indifference 
what his ideas were as to the separation of the classes, or upon 
the science of government ; but if we are to install a monitor 
within our homes as a domestic god, or adopt a writer as a 
political instructor, it is of some importance that we should 
know how much credit to concede to such an author's conscience 
and principles. It will readily be seen, therefore, that Shake- 
speare is a character of much more consequence to Englishmen, 
and especially to the ruling classes of Great Britain, than he can 
ever be to the republican citizens of the United States. With 
us, he is but the poet, mighty beyond all comparison; but to 



Shakespeare s Early Life. 7 

the ruling classes of Great Britain he is not only the Poet, but 
the Patron of their order, and also the tireless inculeator of those 
forms of popular obsequiousness, which long have been the marvel 
of the civilized world, under the almost purely personal form of 
English patriotism. The author of the Shakespeare plays has 
been, in this way, the unseen source, the incessant fountain, the 
constant domineering influence, which has done more to continue 
the worship of the English people for royalty and rank, than all 
other agencies combined. Well may the nobility of England be 
jealous of his pre-eminence, and defend him as the greatest 
genius ever given to the world. They have an interest in his 
popular supremacy, which they cannot afford to surrender, and 
he has been worth to them, during the last two hundred years, 
millions of men and billions upon billions of money. He deserves 
at their hands a monument more lofty than the Pyramids ; while it 
is very questionable, on the other hand, if the English masses owe 
him anything beyond their involuntary admiration for his mind. 
It suggests itself to me at this point, therefore, that it would 
perhaps be a better policy for the British aristocracy, to leave 
this mighty Voice to continue to speak from among The People, 
rather than as one of the aristocratic masters of The People. 

But we must not be beaten back by the awe of generations. 
We must demand boldly who and what this mighty genius was, 
— what were his principles, his character, his faith, his motive in 
writing as he did, and what manner of man he was in his familiar 
way of life. And all this ig necessary in order, first, to decide 
the question as between Shakespeare and Bacon, and then to 
assign to the actual writer of the Shakespeare plays the position, 
as a poet, inoralist, and public teacher, to which he may be 
entitled among the English-speaking race of both sides of the 
Atlantic. 

The first objection to the authorship of William Shakespeare, 
which the Baconians raise, is that no man of such humble origin, 
deficient scholarship, and loose, easy-going way of life as Shake- 
speare, could have been possessed of such profound knowledge as 
be exhibited, and be capable of such transcendant imagery as 
these plays develope, nay, that no common play-writer could 
have possessed such a familiarity with court etiquette and with 
the language of nobles, and of kings and queens, as he. But the 
force of these objections is seriously damaged by the fact that 



8 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

none of the disciples of the Baconian theory who have sprung- up 
since 1856, ever had the advantage of studying the manners or 
the '^set phrase of courts/'' themselves. And here I may be 
allowed to add that it may be considered certain that the 
writer of the Shakespeare plays himself spoke much better 
English than any prince or noble of Elizabeth's court. 

As to the character and morals of William Shakespeare, he 
certainly suffers nothing from a comparison with Sir Erancis 
Bacon. Shakespeare commenced life as a deer-stealer and a 
drunkard/ had a child born to him in less than six months after 

1 This latter seems to be a harsli declaration, but I find my autbonty 
for it in pages 8 and 9 of tbe Memoir of Shakespeare by the Eev. William 
Harkness, M.A., in Cooledge and Brother's New York edition of Scott, 
Webster, and Geary's London edition of the Works of Shakespeare. I need 
not say to Shakespearian scholars that the authority of Mr. Harkness is 
entitled to the highest respect. 

"The gaiety of his (Shakespeare's) disposition," says Mr. Harkness, 
" naturally inclined him to society ; and the thoughtlessness of youth 
prevented his being sufficiently scrupulous about the conduct and the 
character of his associates. ' He had, by a misfortune, common enough 
to young fellows, fallen into ill company,' says Eowe ; and the excesses 
into which they seduced him, were by no means consistent with that 
seriousness of deportment and behaviour which is expected to accom- 
pany the occupation that he had adopted. The following anecdote of 
these days of his riot is still current at Stratford, and the neighbouring 
village of Bidford. I give it in the words of the author from whom it is 
taken. Speaking of Bidford, he says, ' There were anciently two societies 
of village yeomanry in this place, who frequently met under the appellation 
of Bidford topers. It was a custom of these heroes to challenge any of their 
neighbours, famed for the love of good ale, to a drunken combat; among 
others, the people of Stratford were called out to a trial of strength, and in the 
number of their champions, as the traditional story runs, our Shakespeare, 
who foreswore all thin potations, and addicted himself to ale as lustily as 
FalstafF to his sack, is said to have entered the lists. In confirmation of this 
tradition, we find an epigram written by Sir Aston Cockany, and published in 
his poems in 1858 ; it runs thus : — 

««T0 MR. CLEMENT EISHER, OF WINCOT. 

Shahespeare, your Wincot ale hath much renown' d. 
That fox'd a beggar so (by chance was found 
Sleeping) that there needed not many a word 
To make him to believe he was a lord : 
But you affirm (and in it seem most eager) , 
'Twill make a lord as drunk as any beggar. 



Shakespeare s Early Life. 9 

marriage/ and lived in London during all liis theatrical career 
without his wife. He was so mean as to sue one man for a debt 
of £6, and another for £1 19^. 10^./ when he had an income of 

Bid Norton brew such ale as Shakespeare fancies 

Did put Kit Sly into such lordly trances : 

And let us meet there (for a fit of gladness), 

And drink ourselves merry in sober sadness. 
" ' When the Stratford lads went over to Bidford, they found the topers 
were gone to Eversham fair, but were told, if they wished to try their 
strength with the sippers, they were ready for the contest. This being 
acceded to, our bard and his companions were staggered at the first outset, 
when they thought it advisable to sound a retreat, while the means of retreat 
were practicable, and then had scarce marched half a mile before they were all 
forced to lay down more than their arms, and encamp in a very disorderly and 
unmilitary form, under no better covering than a large crab-tree, and there 
they rested till morning. 

" ' This tree is yet standing by the side of the road. If, as it has been 
observed by the late Mr. T. Wharton, the meanest hovel to which Shakespeare 
has an allusion interests curiosity and acquires an importance, surely the 
tree which has spread its shade over him, and sheltered him from the dews of 
the night, has a claim to our attention. 

" ' In the morning, when the company awakened our bard,' the story says, 
' they entreated him to return to Bidford and renew the charge, but this he 
declined, and looking round upon the adjoining villages, exclaimed, " No ! I 
have had enough, I have drunk with 

Piping Pebworth, Dancing Marston, 
Haunted Hillbro', Hungry Grafton, 
Dudging Exhall, Papist Wicksford, 
Beggarly Broom, and Drunken Bidford.'' 

" ' Of the truth of this story I have very little doubt. It is certain that 
the crab-tree is known all round the country by the name of Shakespeare's 
crab, and that the villages to which the allusion is made all bear the epithets 
here given them : the people of Pebworth are still famed for their skill on the 
pipe and tabor : Hillborough is now called Haunted Hillborough, and Grafton 
is notorious for the poverty of its soil.' " 

The above relation, if it be true, presents us with a most unfavourable 
picture of the manners and morals prevalent among the youth of War- 
wickshire in the early years of Shakespeare, and it fills us with regret to find 
our immortal poet, with faculties so exalted, competing the bad pre-eminence 
in such abominable contests. It is some relief to know that, though he erred 
in uniting himself with such gross associations, he was the first to retreat from 
them in disgust. 

2 Knight's "Shakespeare," Appleton and Co.'s American edition, p. 244 ; 
E. Grant White, p. 145. 

3 Knight, vol. i. p. 158. 



lo Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

lOOOi?. a year, and died, at the age of fifty-two, from the effect 
of too much drink at dinner.^ Sir Francis Bacon, on the other 
hand, was all his life a clamorous office-seeker, a time-server, and 
a corrupt judge. He was condemned to the Tower, when Lord 
Chancellor, for having sold his judicial opinions for money, and, 
worse still, confessed the crime in order to mitigate his sentence. 
On a review of his whole character. Pope, the poet, stingingly 
characterized him as 

" The wisest, brightest, meatiest of mankind." 

So, between William Shakespeare and Sir Francis Bacon, in a 
moral point of view, there was no great gulf. Indeed, if there 
were any disparagement of degradation, it was against Sir 
Francis. 

Most of the Shakespearian biographers and critics make it a 
matter of regret that so little being known of the history of 
the great poet, it is exceedingly difficult to form a true 
estimate of his personal character; but the difficulty which I 
find in that respect is, that these biographers and commentators 
nearly all start from the one point, of endeavouring to conceal, or 
at least to palliate, those follies and defects which might impair 
Shakespeare's influence or credit with the people. They set out, 
consequently, with the desire to describe Shakespeare as they 
would like to have him. His robbing of a gentleman's park, a 
very high crime at any time in England, is patronized gently as 
a youthful escapade, and the premature appearance of the first 
child of his marriage has been justified by the presumed 
privileges of a Warwickshire betrothal. 

There has been some dispute among Shakespeare's biographers 
about his religious faith, a few having presented evidences tend- 
ing to show that he was a Roman Catholic; but the great 
majority, being of Protestant politics, discourage that idea. 
Bacon we know to have been a Protestant of an extreme type, 
and from this difference springs an interesting point of our 
inquiry. The question presents itself at once as to which 
religious faith is most manifested in the plays. If they were the 
production of a Roman Catholic, Bacon could not have been 
their author, 

4 Eichard Grant White, pp. 46, 55. 



Shakespeare s Early Life. ii 

What we have first upon our hands, however, is the sing-ular 
anomaly presented by the sj)ectacle of a g-enius of the life-giving 
order, wlio was born in comparative humbleness, never betray- 
ing one emotion for, or exhibiting a single sympathy with the 
down-trodden classes, wliose degradations and miseries must have 
constantly intruded upon his subtle comprehension. But the 
mist lifts before the light of facts. "We have abundant evidence 
that Shakespeare was, in his personal way of life, though of a 
cheerful, amiable disposition, a calculating, money-making', 
money-saving man, and the conclusion from the circvimstances 
of his business in London and at Stratford must be, that he 
suppressed his natural sentiments to a convenience of association 
and a sense of interest. His first patron, when he was a 
theatrical manager, was the Earl of Southampton, a prodigal 
young nobleman of enormous wealth, who, together with the 
Earls of Essex and of Rutland, were constant visitors at his 
theatre.^ 

So. thoroughly had Shakespeare established himself under the 
patronage of Southampton, that he dedicated to him his " Venus 
and Adonis,'''' and in the following year also his ^^Lucrece." By 
way of showing, moreover, the extent to which the dramatist had 
advanced himself into his lordship's favour, Richard Grant 
White states (p. 97), that Shakespeare took this liberty in the 
matter of " Venus and Adonis '' without, " as the dedication 
shows,'' asking his lordship's permission j a very unusual responsi- 
bility, says the same commentator, to assume with the name of 
any man, much less a nobleman, unless he had felt himself 
secure in his lordship's good graces. Southampton was at this 
time under twenty years of age, and Essex (subsequently the 
favourite of Queen Elizabeth) was but four years older. In 
speaking of these young noblemen and their associates, who it 
may be as well to state were Catholics, Judge Holmes in his 
essay in favour of the Baconian theory says, that Southampton, 
Rutland, and the rest of Essex's jovial crew " pass their time in 
London in merely going to plays every day." 
, It was about this time, says Rowe, that " my lord Southampton 
at one time gave Shakespeare 1000^?. to enable him to go through 
a purchase he had a mind to." This princely gift is, of course, 
ascribed to Southampton's estimation of the muse of Shakespeare, 
* The " Authorship of Shakespeare," Nathaniel Holmes, p. 95. 



12 Shakespeare, from an. American Point of View. 

but inasmuch as Southampton never exhibited any appreciation 
of literature beyond having the run of Shakespeare's theatre^ we 
are justified in attributing the earFs attachment to the manager 
to considerations which frequently operate with young men of 
means and fashion down to the present day. It is true that, in 
Shakespeare's time, there were no actresses attached to theatrical 
companies, the female parts being performed by boys, but it was 
the custom of ladies of quality to sit upon the stage during 
theatrical entertainments, and there are several anecdotes of 
intrigues having taken place between them and young gallants, 
under such circumstances. * And this theory of personal 
familiarity between Shakespeare and a coroneted gallant of nine- 
teen is all the more likely, than the one which ascribes South- 
ampton's liberality to his patronage of literature, since that 
nobleman lived till he was fifty-four without having given any 
other evidence of a love of letters, or, indeed, without having 
made any mark beyond getting himself into the Tower for 
taking part in Essex's foolish Irish- Jesuit expedition, which cost 
the latter unhappy nobleman his life. 

Considerations such as the foregoing would as satisfactorily 
account for the absence in Shakespeare of liberal sentiments, as 
the natural tendencies of Bacon's rank would account for the 
latter's aristocratic coldness of heart. 

Let not the rapt worshippers of Avon's bard, whose sacred 
ecstasy is thus rudely broken in upon, suppose I take pleasure in 
these hard statistics. Nothing can reduce Shakespeare from the 
supreme elevation which he holds in the United States as the 
poet of the English-speaking race ; but we in America take no 
interest in him as a politician, nor yet as a moralist; and, 
surely it is wiser for us, who are not involved in any tangles of 
allegiance, to disenchant ourselves of the spells fumed up by 
loyalty and doctrine, and treat this mighty mortal as a man. 
Perhaps the most curious and interesting problem which can 
thus be brought to our comprehension is — what amount of dirt 
may mix with, and be instrumental in, the production of a 
flaming gem. And Eacon is as subject to this criticism as 
Shakespeare. 

® Queen Elizabetli used sometimes to sit behind the scenes, and on one 
occasion crossed the stage in view of the audience while Shakespeare himself 
was performing a character. 



Lord Bacon. 13 



CHAPTER III. 

LOUD BACON. 

" They say, best meu are moulded out of faults." 

Measure for Measure, Act. V. Scene 1. 

The theory that Lord Verulam (familiarly known as Lord Bacon) 
was tlie author of the plays attributed to Shakespeare^ first 
became a matter of general discussion^ as I have already stated, 
in consequence of an article by Delia Bacon, in the January 
number o^ Putnam's Magazine for 1856, published in America — 
three hundred and fifteen years after Bacon was born, and two 
hundred and fifty-nine y.e^ after William Shakespeare had 
been buried. The claim set up for Bacon, therefore, is barely 
nineteen years old, as ag-ainst the nearly three hundred years of 
general acceptance, by history, of Shakespeare^s rights. Shortly 
after the appearance of Miss Bacon's essay in the American 
magazine, she published it, somewhat enlarged, in pamphlet 
form, with an introduction by Nathaniel Hawthorne, in which 
shape it crossed the Atlantic, and had its ideas adopted by an 
English writer named William H. Smith, who supported and 
extended her views in an ingenious treatise published by him in 
London in 1857. Eight years afterwards, the November number 
oi Fraser's Magazine for 1865 showed that Lord Palmerston had 
become a convert to the Baconian theory, and in the following 
year Nathaniel Holmes, Professor of Law in Harvard University, 
Cambridge, Mass., issued an elaborate volume of 600 pages 
supporting Miss Bacon's view. Here we have the whole scope 
of the Baconian pretension, comprising at the most a period of 
twenty years, with a meagre following of conspicuous advocates ; 
while, on the other hand, stand grouped in silent protest a crowd 
of Baconian biographers, stretching through well-nigh three 



14 Shakespeare^ from an America^i Point of View. 

centurieSj wlio^ with the greatest desire to aggrandize the object 
of their worship, never dropped a hint of the idea that Bacon 
could possibly have been the author of the plays of Shakespeare. 
Nay, more, one of the latest, W. Hepworth Dixon, writing as 
late as 1861/ alludes to Shakespeare as a separate person from 
the subject of his work. 

Having thus marshalled the forces of the two parties to the 
controversy (for the silence of Bacon's biographers practically 
arrays them on the side of Shakespeare), it now suggests 
itself that we should inquire briefly into the separate histories of 
Bacon and Shakespeare, and ascertain what connexion each had 
with the literature of their age ; and what, if any, were their 
relations to one another. They are consigned to us by the history 
of the times in which they lived, as hoo characters ; one as the 
unapproachable Master of Philosophy and Law, and the other as 
the most transcendent genius of Poetry and Imagination.* 



Sir Feancis Bacon, 'Lord Verulam, Viscount St. Albans, and 
Lord High Chancellor of England, was born Jan. 23, 1560. He 
matriculated at Trinity College, Cambridge, at the age of 
thirteen, and soon afterward passed two years in travel on the 
European continent. In 1584 he first sat in the House of 
Commons as member for Melcombe, and from this time (though 
he was by courtesy the Queen's Lord Keeper at the age of ten), 
may be dated the commencement of his public official career. 

In the parliamentary sessions of 1586-7-8 young Bacon played 
a most influential part. " These three sessions," says Dixon, 
'^ had to save the liberties of England and the faith of nearly 
half of Europe. They crushed the Jesuits and broke and 
punished the Bomanist conspiracies.'" This fixes Bacon's faith, 
like that of his mother, the pious Lady Ann (whom he speaks of 
as '' a saint of God "), to be of the Protestant persuasion, though 
we find a more decisive proof of Bacon's doctrine in the fact, 

" Dixon's "Personal History of Lord Bacon," Boston, 1861. 

8 " Those two incomparable men, the Prince of Poets and the Prince of 
Philosophers, Avho made the Elizabethan age a more glorious and important 
era in the history of the human mind than the age of Pericles, of Augustus, 
or of Leo." — Lord Macaulay, " Essay on Burleigh and his Tinies," vol. v. 
p. 611, ed. Trevelyan. 



Lord Bacon. 1 5 

that lie was one of a committee which, in 1587, wailed upon 
Queen Elizabeth to demand the execution of Maiy, Queen of 
Scots. To use the words of Dixon in describing- the scene : 
"The Queen (Elizabeth) holds out. A grand committee, of 
which Bacon is a member, goes into the presence, and, kneeling 
together at her feet, demand that the national will shall be done 
— ^that the Protestant faith shall be saved.'''' * 

About the year 1589, we find Bacon, who was then between 
twenty-nine and thirty years of age, the associate of Essex, 
who was twenty-three, of Southampton, who was nineteen, 
Montgomery, Pembroke, Rutland, "and the rest of Essex^s 
jovial crew, which passed their time in going- to Shakespeare's 
theatre every day.'" At this time Shakespeare himself, though 
already famous, was but twenty-five. This brings the above 
nobleman so in communication with Shakespeare, that nothing 
is more probable than that some of his unplayed manuscripts 
were read to " Essex, Southampton, and the rest,'-* perhaps in 
Bacon's presence — a common custom with authorship and 
patronage in the Elizabethan age. 

On the other hand, it is not impossible that Shakespeare, who 
doubtless was a great reader, touched now and then upon some 
of Bacon''s theories, and thus we may readily account for any 
supposed plagiarism of one upon the other. I do not wish to be 
understood, however, as admitting, at this point, that either of 
these wondrous men was ever indebted to the other for an idea ; 
though the most exacting devotee of Bacon might readily admit 
the occasional obligation of the latter to the poet, without 
brushing a single grain of the golden powder from his idol's 
wing. The likelihood, indeed, is far greater that Bacon insen- 
sibly fell into the habit, during the midsummer of Shakespeare's 
current popularity, of drawing from him as from a common well 
of lang-uao-e. This has been the custom of the world since he 
appeared, and even such a man as Bacon could hardly have 
resisted the temptation. 

The spinal column of the Baconian claim is, that Sir Francis 
Bacon considered the reputation of a playwright to be so de- 
rogatory to his social and literary pretensions, as well as to his 
high political aspirations, that he concealed his taste for dra- 

9 Dixon's " Personal History of Lord Bacon," p. 29. 



1 6 Shakespeare, from an Ame7'ican Point of View. 

matic writing under the convenient mask of the good-natured 
and popular manager of the Blaekfriars Theatre ; or, to use the 
language of the article in Fraser, that he (Bacon) " passed the 
plays off under the name of an actor for fear of compromising his 
professional prospects and philosophic gravity/'' But the main 
difficulty in the way of this theory is, that successful dramatic 
composition was recognized by very high honours in the times 
of Elizabeth and James I., Shakespeare himself having reached 
the high compliment of an introduction to Court for his successes 
in that way. In addition to this, the dramatists of that day were 
most of them men of scholarship ; several being of a social 
position quite worthy of ranking with that of Sir Francis Bacon. 
For instance, Massinger, " second to none but him who never 
had an equal/'' received his education at Oxford, and lived to an 
old age, " solaced by the applauses of the virtuous.''^ ' Beaumont 
and Fletcher (the latter of whom was buried in the same grave 
with Massinger) were lawyers — in all ages the profession of 
gentlemen, Marlowe, the tragic poet, matriculated at Cam- 
bridge ; Shirley studied at Oxford ; Ben Jonson " had the 
singular happiness of receiving his education under the illus- 
trious Camden.''^ His studies were interrupted by his change of 
circumstances, through his mother's death, but they were finally 
completed at Cambridge ; Quarles was educated at Cambridge ; 
Lyly went first to Oxford and finished at Cambridge ; and 
grouped with these come Thomas Sackville, subsequently Lord 
Treasurer, Lord Buckhurst, and we may add, Sir Philip Sidney, 
the equal of princes, who " wrote one dramatic piece, ' The Lady 
of the May,^ a masque, acted before Elizabeth in the gardens of 
Wanstead, in Essex.'''' Sidney was Elizabeth^s " ambassador to 
the German powers, but when the fame of his valour and genius 
became so general that he was put in nomination for the king- 
dom of Poland, she refused to sanction his advancement lest she 
should lose the brightest jewel in her court,''^ ^ Surely this 
illustrious example of honour and advancement might have 
justified Bacon, after the mighty merits of such productions as 
"Lear,''^ " Hamlet,^^ and ^''Othello'''' had been recognized by the best 
critics of the time, to accept the credit of their composition to 
himself — provided always that he was their author. Besides, 

' Knight's octavo, published by Guy and Baine, London, p. 3". 
2 Knight's octavo, p. 43. 



Lord Bacon. 1 7 

Bacon openly wrote dramatic compositions under the form of 
masques and mysteries ; first, for the gentlemen at Gray's Inn 
during the Christmas Revels of 1587, and subsequently, in 
1594, for the entertainment of the court.^ 

Bacon married Alice Barnham at the age of forty-six; at fifty- 
two he was made Attorney-General, and became Lord Chancellor 
at the age of fifty-seven. In the fourth year of this great 
office he was detected in taking bribes for his decisions, and, 
having confessed his crime in order to propitiate the mercy of 
his judges, was sent .to the Tower on May 3, 1621. After re- 
maining a prisoner for ten months, the fine inflicted on him was 
remitted and he was released in March, 1623. He never resumed 
public life, but died three years afterwards in 1625. Bacon was 
a thorough specimen of the politician of that time, being a per- 
sistent applicant for office, and always selfish, sordid, and 
unfaithful. He was exceedingly greedy of money, and though 
his revenues most of the time were liberal, he was constantly 
the victim of the usurers. Some of his biographers describe 
him as pure in his morals and temperate in his habits, which 
certainly does not represent the case of William Shakespeare. 

Dixon speaks of Bacon as " a man born to high rank who 
seeks incessantly for place," while according to Pope and Lord 
Campbell, Cecil and Coke, he is " in turn abject, venal, proud, 
profuse — ungrateful for the gifts of Essex, mercenary in his love 
for Alice Barnham, servile to the House of Commons, and corrupt 
on the judicial bench." * The most noteworthy feature of the work 
of Dixon is, that its author does not make even the slightest 
allusion to the Bacon- Shakespeare theory, though that theory 
had then been projected full five years. And, perhaps, at this 
point, it is worthy of mention that Bacon, on the other hand, 
never, in all his voluminous writings, made the most distant 
allusion to Shakespeare. 

Such was Bacon, for whom the Baconians claim, that he 
possessed more of the education, wit, emotional elevation, and 
moral fitness for the production of such intellectual light as 
beams through the plays before us, than the man to whom these 
plays have always been ascribed, and who indisputably wrote 
" Venus and Adonis." 

3 Holmes, p." 90. 

4 Dixon's " Personal History of Lord Bacon," Boston, 1861, p. 4. 



1 8 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 



CHAPTER IV. 

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 

" It is quite a fallacy/'' says Halliwell^ one of the most pains- 
taking- and reliable of the biographers of Shakespeare^, " to 
complain how little we are acquainted with William Shake- 
speare^s career and worldly character. On the contrary, we should 
be thankful we know more of him than we do of Spenser_, or of 
many others^ the history of whose lives would be so interesting 
and so valuable.''-' ^ " We know more of William Shakespeare 
before he was forty years old;" says Kichard Grant White^ taking ' 
up this cue from Halliwell, " than we do of Oliver Cromwell at 
the same age ; than the Greeks knew of ^EschyluS;, the father of 
their tragedy ; or of Aristophanes^ the father of their comedy^ 
two centuries after they died j or than the French do of Moliere, 
not a page of whose manuscripts is known to be in existence.''^ 
"The same truth/' adds this writer, "is illustrated in the 
biography of Washington, whose own nephew, to whom were 
open all family papers and records, was unable to discover the 
date of his marriage, although his wife, Mrs. Custis, was one of 
the richliest dowered widows in all Virginia.''^ ^ The truth is, as 
I have said before, there were abundant details of the personal 
life of William Shakespeare open to the hands of the early, 
and even the later English biographers, if they had only 
thought it politic to state frankly and without subterfuge, all 
they knew about him. Some of the reasons for their reticence 
I have already given. In dealing with Shakespeare's history 
for the purposes of this inquiry I shall endeavour to be very 
brief. 

^ Hallivvell's " Shakespeare," p. 2. 

^ Eicbard Grant White, p. 182, 4, 5. 



William Shakespeare. 19 

William Shakespeare was bora at Stratford-upon-Avon, on 
the 23rd April, 1564<. His father, John Shakespeare, was, 
aecordina" to Howe, a considerable dealer in wool, and had been 
first alderman and then high bailiff of the body corporate of 
Stratford. He had also been chamberlain, and possessed lands 
and tenements which were said to have been the reward of his 
grandfather-'s faithful services to King Henry VII. It has also 
been said that John Shakespeare at one time followed the 
occupation of a butcher, but this report doubtless grew out of 
his occasionally adding to his trade in wool, the sale of furs ; and, 
when opportunity invited, according to the custom of country 
stores, the sale of butcher's meat. At the birth of our poet, who 
was a first son, John Shakespeare was in a thriving condition, 
and this prosperity continued for some years afterward. William, 
as soon as he had arrived at a proper age, was placed at a free 
grammar school of the town of Stratford, where Latin and other 
liberal acquirements were taught; but at the age of fourteen he 
was rather suddenly withdrawn, in consequence of the decline in 
his father''s circumstances, either to assist him in his business, or 
to lend a hand in gaining his own livelihood. Some of the 
commentators think, that from school he went into the office of 
a country attorney, or was placed with the seneschal of some 
manor court, " where,'' says one writer, " it is highly probable 
he picked up those law phrases that so frequently occur in his 
plays, and which could not have been in common use, unless 
among professional men.^ This view, in addition to being in it- 
self very plausible, derives its main support from an attack made 
upon Shakespeare by one of his London dramatic cotemporaries, 
Robert Greene, who, jealous of our poet's rapid rise over all his 
rivals in popular estimation, sneered at him for presuming to be 
" the only Shake-scene in a countrey." * Nash, a parasite of 
Greene's, and of the same coarse, envious character, next attacks 
and practically advises our poet to return to his original '^ trade 

3 Duyckinck's " Life of Shakespeare," in Porter and Coate's edition, Phila- 
delphia, 1874, p. 3. 

■* " Trust them not {i. e. the players), for there is an upstart crow, beauti- 
fied with our feathers, that with his tiger's heart wrapt in a player's hide, 
supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you ; 
and being an absolute Johannes factotum, is, in his own conceit, the only 
Shak-scene in a countrey." — Greene's " Groat's Worth of Wit." 



20 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

of noverint," ^ which indicates the calling- of an attorney's clerk.® 
The age of fourteen^ therefore, which sees Shakespeare retire 
from the Stratford school, is the true commencement of his 
public life. 

It now becomes a matter of great importance to our inquiry 
to ascertain with what religious sentiments or leanings William 
Shakespeare embarked upon the world ; (for, after all, it matters 
not how men may drop the observance of religious forms, 
as the constant pressure of expanding worldly knowledge chips 
that reverence away) the early teachings of a religious mother 
always represent a large dormant influence, which awakens at 
every opportunity, to give direction to the general flow of 
judgment. And it is entirely well settled that Mary Arden, the 
mother of William Shakespeare, daughter and heiress of Robert 
Arden, of Wellingcote, styled " a gentleman of worship,^' was a 
Roman Catholic. We have already seen that the mother of 
Francis Bacon was a Protestant. By following this line of 
inquiry, and gauging it carefully, as we go along, by the in- 
variable religious sentiment of the Shakespeare plays, we must 
finally reach a point decisive. For, though Essex and South- 
ampton, Shakespeare's great patrons were Catholics, and though 
Shakespeare may be supposed to have been influenced by their 
political predilections, from any expression savouring of democracy 
in his writings, it is not to be credited for an instant that a man 
of such early training could have been domineered by them from 
the natural flow of his religious sentiments. On the contrary, 
there is much reason to believe that, in this particular, he and 
they were in full accord. 

Let me add at this point that it is certainly known that Sir 
Thomas Lucy, whose deer were stolen by Shakespeare soon after 

® Noverint universi per presentes is the Latin for "know all men by these 
presents," hence attorneys were often called noverints from their frequent 
use of that term. The nickname could apply to no other class. 

^ " It is a common practice now-a-days, among a sort of shiftless com- 
panions that run through every art and thrive by none, to leave the trade of 
noverint, whereto they were born, and busy themselves with the endeavours 
of art, though they could scarcely latinize their neck-verse if they should 
have need; yet English Seneca, read by candle-light, yields many good sen- 
tences — and if you entreat him fair in a frosty morning, he will afford you 
whole Hamlets, I should say, handfuls of tragical speeches." — Nashe's Intro- 
duction to "Greene's Menaphon," 1589, and Knight, vol. i. p. 102. 



William Shakespeare. 21 

he left school^ and under whose persecutions it seems the future 
poet was finally driven out of Stratford was^ of that strict shade 
of th,e reformed faith known as Puritan, and as such, was one of 
a commission appointed by the government to report against 
heretics and nonconformists/ As such commissioner, Sir 
Thomas Lucy, with the rest of the board, reported against John 
Shakespeare, the father, and about fourteen other persons, for 
not having, during several weeks, made their appearance at 
church. Eight of these derelicts, among whom we again find 
John Shakespeare, were likewise impugned with the further 
motive of desiring by such non-attendance to evade the service 
of process for debt. This latter imputation is rather eagerly 
adopted by the Protestant biographers of Shakespeare in pre- 

7 Harness, in describing the incident between Sir Thomas Lucy and young 
William Shakespeare, which had such a decisive influence upon the poet's life, 
says, " One of the favourite amusements of the wild companions with whom 
Shakespeare in his youthful days allied himself, was the stealing of deer and 
corries. In these hazardous exploits Shakespeare was not backward in accom- 
panying' his comrades. The person in whose neighbourhood, perhaps on 
whose property, these encroachments were made, was of all others the indi- 
vidual from whose hands they were least likely to escape with impunity in case 
of detection. Sir Thomas Lucy was a Ftiritan ; and the severity of manners 
which has always characterized this sect, would teach him to extend very 
little indulgence to the excesses of Shakespeare and his wilful companions. 
He was, besides, a game preserver : in his place as a member of Parliament 
he had been an active instrument in the formation of the game laws, and the 
trespasses of our poet, whether committed on the demesne of himself or others, 
were as offensive to his predilections as to his principles. Shakespeare and 
his compeers were discovered, and fell under the rigid lash of Sir Thomas 
Lucy's authority and resentment. The knight attacked the poet with the 
penalties of the law, and the poet revenged himself by sticking some satirical 
verses on the gate of the knight's park. The following are the first and 
last: — ■ 

Verses on Sir Tliomas Lucy. 

" A parliement member, a justice of peace, 
At home a poore scarecrowe, in London an asse ; 
If Lucy is Lousie,"as some volke misscall it, 
Sygee Lousie Lucy whatever befall it. 

j^ jt jt jK. j& ^^ 

•JV* TP w TP w "aP 

" If a iuvenile frolick he cannot forgive, 
We'll synge Lousie Lucy as long as we live ; 
And Lucy the Lousie a libel may call it. 
We'll synge Lousie Lucy whatever befall it." 
3 



■22 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

ference to the ftrst, because, perhaps, they are thus enabled to 
escape the inference that the Shakespeare family was of the 
E,oman Catholic faith. 

Before proceeding farther as to Shakespeare's religious faith, 
I will return to the historical narration, in order that the decisive 
questions of our poet's social, political, and religious sentiments 
may follow in regular order, and lead up to the door of the 
text, with as little further interruption as possible. In this, as 
I have already said, the objects of oxir inquiry only permit me to 
be brief. 

We have seen that Shakespeare, owing to his father's 
straitened circumstances, left school at the age of fourteen; 
but we are justified in the conclusion that he acquired a sufficient 
knowledge of the classics, during the last two or three years of his 
studies, to qualify him for all the use which is exhibited of such 
learning in the plays, and this, from the fact (says Malone) "that 
other Stratford men, educated at the same school, were familiarly 
conversant with Latin, and even corresponded in that language." ^ 
Upon this point Mr. LoflPt asserts, in his introduction to the 
" Aphorisms," that Shakespeare " had what would now be 
considered a very reasonable proportion of Latin; he was not 
wholly ignorant of Greek ; he had a knowledge of French so as 
to read it with ease, and, I believe, not less of the Italian, If it 
had been true that he had no Greek, as some contend from Ben 
Jonson's famous line, that he had * little Latin and less Greek,-* 
it would have been as easy for the verse as for the sentiment to 
have said * no Greek.' " ' It is hard to defeat this reasoning ; 
Aubrey and Dr. Drake agree with it, and Harness, in subscribing 
to it, remarks, " That Shakespeare should appear tinlearned in 
the judgment of Jonson, who perhaps measured him by the 
scale of his own enormous erudition, is no imputation upon his 
classical attainments." I think it may be properly suggested 
at this point, that nothing is more likely than that Shakespeare 
keenly pursued his studies after he left school ; and if, as there 
seems to be but little doubt, he went into an attorney's office, he 
had ample leisure for such application. The experience of every 
man who has ever had a taste for study will tell him how natural 
such a course would be ; nay, how strange it would have been if 

^ Malone's " Shakespeare," Boswell's Edition, vol. ii. p. 182. 
^ " Apliorisms from Shakespeare," pp. 12, 13, 14. 



William Shakespeare. 23 

the eager mind of Shakespeare had not followed it. The extent 
of proficiency acquired by a mind like his, after such a good 
start as it had received^ cannot be captiously limited. It is fair, 
therefore, to terminate the analysis of this first period of our 
poet^s life with the conclusion that William Shakespeare, though 
not so great a scholar as Lord Bacon, possessed all the reading 
and classical accomplishment requisite to the production of the 
Shakespeare plays; and though he never became a lawyer in 
any true sense of that term, he had, in some lesser way, acquired 
all the " convey ancej-^s jargon," and phrases of attorneyship 
which are to be found sprinkled through his dramatic works. 
The period for this educational improvement, in the semi- solitude 
of a little country town like Stratford ran, in Shakespeare^s case 
from fourteen till the age of twenty -two, at which latter date he 
went up to London. I may here be met by the remark, in 
objection to the probability of Shakespeare^s studious habits, 
that he began by leading a wild, dissipated life, and married at 
the age of eighteen. But every married man^s experience will 
tell him that the conjugal condition rather promotes serious 
reflection than otherwise; while Shakespeare^s drunken bouts, 
his matches at intoxication, and his infractions of the game-laws 
under the form of deer-stealing, may be regarded as the neces- 
sary vents and excesses of an intensely active nature, which 
could not be " cribb'd, cabined and confined " of its natural 
instincts by the sleepy decorum of a place like Stratford. 

Yielding to these wilful impulses in yet another way, he made 
his precocious and imprudent marriage. The object of his choice 
was Ann Hathaway, the daughter of a substantial yeoman of 
Shottery, a little village about three miles from Stratford. She 
was eight years older than Shakespeare, which circumstance 
doubtless had its effect in producing the long separations that 
took place between them in the form of extended stays in 
London during his after-life. This marriage took place in 
December, 1583, and their first child subsequent to it was 
Susanna, born May 23, 1583, a period of little more than five 
months. Shakespeare showed his superior affection for this 
child, however, by leaving her the bulk of his property. It 
would seem, therefore, that he could not have doubted her 
paternity, whatever scandals may have got into circulation on 
the subject. It does not appear, indeed, that there ever was any 



24 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

positive disagreement between himself and wife ; thougli it is 
worthy of observation^ that in the first copy of his will he made 
no mention of her name_, and only inserted it afterward to the 
extent of leaving her " his second-best bed/' He probably was 
influenced to the slightness of this bequest, by the fact that she 
was sufficiently provided for out of his real estate by the usual 
common-law right of dower. 

Nearly all of Shakespeare's biographers show a disposition to 
shield him and Ann Hathaway from the inferential reproach of 
the premature debut of Susanna, by assuming that the period of 
betrothal in that age, in some portions of England, imparted all 
the liberties of wedlock. Perhaps we have Shakespeare's own 
opinion on the subject in the following lines of Claudio's in 
"Much Ado about Nothing," where he replies to Leonato's 
reproaches for slandering the honour of his daughter Hero, 
whom Claudio stood engaged to marry : — 

Claitdio. I know what you would say ; if J" have known lier, 
You'll say she did embrace me as a hiisband 
And so extenuate the " forehand sin." 

Much Ado, Act IV. Scene 1. 

And, again, in the Duke's advice to Mariana, in " Measure for 

Measure :" — 

Duke {disguised as a priest). Nor, gentle daughter, fear you not at all. 
He is your husband on a pre-contract : 
To bring you thus together, 'tis no sin, 
Sith that the justice of your title to him 
Doth flourish the deceit. 

Measure for Measure, Act IV. Scene 1. 

On the subject of his wife's superior age, we find Shakespeare 
again testifying in " Twelfth Night " as follows : — 

Duke. Let still the woman take 

An elder than herself; so wears she to him, 
So sways she level in her husband's heart. 

Ttvelfth Night, Act II. Scene 4, 

And still again, in the same piece, to Viola, who is disguised 
as a young man : — 

Duke. Then let thy love be younger than thyself, 
Or thy affection cannot hold the bent : 
Tor women are as roses, whose fair flower. 
Being once displayed, doth fall that very hour. 

Twelfth Night, Act II. Scene 4. 



William Shakespeare. 25 

Fuvtlier on in tlie same play, the poet puts his own case with 
still more distinctness. Olivia, the heroine of the piece, having 
mistaken Sebastian for Viola, whom she has seen only as a page, 
and with whom she is madly in love, invites him with expressions 
of the utmost fondness to her apartments. Sebastian, who has 
never seen Olivia before, follows her wonderingly, and they pass 
some hours together. After the interval of a scene with other 
characters, Sebastian reappears in Olivia's garden, musing and 
alone, and hardly able to contain himself with his good fortune. 
After gazing with rapture on a pearl Olivia has given him, he 
says,— 

I am mad. 
Or else the lady's mad ; 
But here my lady comes. 

Enter Olivia and, a Friest. 

Olivia {to Sebastian). Blame not this haste of mine; if you mean well, 

Now go with me, and with this holy man, 

Into the chantry by ; there, before him. 

And underneath that consecrated roof 

Plight me the full assurance of your faith ; 

That my most jealous and too doubtful soul 

May live at peace ; he shall conceal it. 

Whiles you are willing it shall come to note, 

What time we will our celebration keep, 

According to my birth. What do you say ? 
Sebastian. I'll follow this good man, and go with you. 

And having sworn truth, ever will be true. 
Olivia. Then lead the way, good father ; and heavens so shine 

That they may fairly note this act of mine. 

A(tt IV. Scene 3. 

There are two further passages in the plays bearing upon this 
subject of troth-plight and premature birth which may as well 
be noticed at this point. The first of these we find in '^The 
Winter's Tale.'-" 

Leontes. My wife's a hobby-horse ; deserves a name 
As rank as any flax-wench, that puts to 
Before her troth-plight. 

Act I. Scene 2. 

The other occurs in " King John,'' in the scene between the 
King, Hobert, and the Bastard. 



26 Shakespeare, from an American Pomt of View. 

EoBEET Faxjlconbeidge {alluding to tJie Bastard). 

And this my mother's sou was none of his ; 
And, if he were, he came into the world 
Full fourteen weeks before the course of time. 

Act I. Scene 1. 

These fourteen weeks^ which Sir Robert thus refers to, 
represent just about the precocity of Susanna Shakespeare, and 
it will be seen that the poet, in neither case, made the defi- 
ciency the subject of a reproach or penalty. Whether this 
frequent recurrence to an important incident in Shakespeare^s 
life was most natural to Shakespeare or to Bacon, the reader 
can readily settle for himself. In this connexion our attention 
becomes directed to the frequency with which the author of the 
plays indulges in a v^ord which, though common enough in 
Shakespeare's time, I must be excused for quoting, I allude 
to the word cuckold. It is surprising to note the extent to which 
he revels in this term. It is profusely sprinkled through all his 
comedies and his historical plays. His tragedies also plentifully 
bear the soil of the idea ; and, indeed, there are very few of the 
plays which are free from this strange fantasy. The word, and 
even its equivalents, seem to operate upon him like a spell. 
Their merest mention provokes in his mind the most un- 
bounded merriment. Like the introduction of a syringe to 
a French audience, the fancy never tires. Indeed, it appears 
to deprive our poet of all self-control, and he rolls before the 
reader, and hold his sides like one who is on the brink of a fit, 
from excess of the ludicrous.^ The question which presents 
itself in connexion with this observation is, whether such a 
development of comic ecstasy would be more likely to Sir Francis 
Bacon, who was not married until he was forty-six, or to William 
Shakespeare, who, at the age of eighteen, married a matured 

^ In looking over the " Dramatic Miscellanies " of Thomas Davies, pub- 
lished in London in 1784, I find the following allusion to Congreve's 
frequent use of the same word in his plays : " The audience in Congreve's 
time," says Davies, " were particularly fond of having a city-cuckold dressed 
up for their entertainment, and Pondle-wife in Congreve's " Old Bachelor " is 
served up with very poignant sauce, for the several incidents in the scene are 
very diverting." — Davies' " Miscellanies," vol. iii. p. 316. 

Congreve was doubtless governed in this matter by the taste which Shake- 
speare had so industriously inculcated. 



William Shakespeare. 27 

woman, and was rewarded with a cliild in little more than five 
months afterwards ? 

Within eighteen months after the birth of Susanna^ Shake- 
speare's wife bore him twins, a son and a daughter, who were 
baptized by the names of Hamnet and Judith ; " and thus, when 
little more than twenty, Shakespeare had already a wife and 
three children dependent on his exertions for support/' He 
remained at home in Stratford until 1586, when, as we have 
already seen, he went to London to seek new fortunes, in that 
larger sphere. Whether he had written anything beyond son- 
nets previous to that time does not aj)pear. It seems that he 
went at once to the neighbourhood of the theatres, and it is 
reported that he began by holding gentlemen's horses at the 
doors. Having probably thus become acquainted with the 
management, he readily worked his way inside the temple of the 
drama, and was soon promoted to the position of call-boy on the 
staffe. 



28 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View, 



CHAPTER V. 

Shakespeare's personal characteristics. 

Shakespeare^s progress from this point appears to have been 
very rapid. He soon was permitted to play minor parts, and in 
three or four years acquired an interest in the management of 
the GlobCj and also in the summer theatre, which was known as 
the playhouse at Blackfriars. At what precise time he began 
to write his plays is not definitely known, as they all found their 
way into print without any effort on his part, and the dates of 
their production was consequently, to a large extent, confounded 
with the order of their publication ; but, taking Furnivars table 
for our guide, it may safely be concluded that he began to write 
them as early as 1588-9. It is a singular fact that he appeared 
to take no interest in the vast renown they were building up for 
him ; for it was not until seven years after his death that the 
first collection of them was printed together, in what has been 
universally known as "the folio of 1623.^^ Of his poems and 
sonnets he seemed to be a great deal more considerate, having 
published most of them over his own name and supervision, and 
dedicating the " Venus and Adonis," and the " Kape of Lucrece " 
in 1593 and 1594 respectively to the young Earl of Southampton. 
In his dedication of the former poem to the Earl, he charac- 
terizes it as " the first heir of his invention,'''' but it is known 
that he wrote plays previous to its appearance, so it is not im- 
probable that the " Venus " had been written much earlier, and 
had perhaps been begun previous to his leaving Stratford. He 
followed the profession of an actor for upwards of seventeen 
years, and the production of his plays, which began probably 
when he was twenty-four, covered a period of twenty- six years. 
During this period he produced thirty-seven plays. 



Shakespeare s Personal Characteristics. 29 

" The latter part of his life/^ says Eovve, " was spent in ease, 
retireraentj and the conversation of his friends/' and he died on 
his birthday, April 23rd, 1616, at the age of 52, in the full 
maturity of his powers, and leaving- a large property behind him. 
The immediate cause of his death is reported by Ward, the vicar 
of Stratford, to have been a merry meeting which he had with 
Drayton and Ben Jonson ; at which, says the vicar, '^ it seems 
he drank too hard, for Shakespeare died of a fever there con- 
tracted/' Knight is unwilling to give absolute confidence to 
this tradition, because the vicar wrote forty years after the event, 
" but,-" he remarks, '^ if it were absolutely true our reverence 
for Shakespeare would not be diminished by the fact that he 
accelerated his end in the exercise of hospitality, according to 
the manner of his age, towards two of the most illustrious of his 
friends/' Knight's objection, that Ward wrote forty years after 
the event, has but little force when we learn that the good vicar's 
work, in which the above fact is stated was his diary, published 
naturally at the close of his career. 

In person Shakespeare is represented as having been of full size, 
comely and prepossessing ; of agreeable manners, but not marked 
either by bearing or in features with that dignity of presence 
which we naturally associate with our ideas of his genius. He 
was chiefly remarkable as a good-natured, amiable, easy-going 
man, with more heart than conscience, of a convivial inclination, 
with full conversational powers, supported by a readiness of wit 
which made him a desirable companion for men of any amount 
of acquirement or rank. ''Every contemporary who has spoken 
of him," says one writer, " has been lavish in the praise of his 
temper and disposition. 'The gentle Shakespeare' seems to 
have been his distinguishing appellation." " No slight portion 
of our enthusiasm for his writings," says another, " may be 
traced to the fair picture which they present of our author's 
character; we love the tenderness of heart, the candour and 
openness and singleness of mind, the largeness of sentiment, the 
liberality of opinion, which the whole tenor of his works prove 
him to have possessed ; his faults seem to have been the transient 
aberrations of a thoughtless moment, which reflection never 
failed to correct." All agree that Shakespeare's presence was 
very attractive, while many incidents are given by his contem- 
poraries to show that with women he was very fascinating. The 



30 Shakespeare, from cttt American Point of View. 

general disposition evinced by his biographers, most of whom 
approach him only in awe and almost upon their knees_, is to dis- 
believe the broadest of these anecdotes, as if it were discreditable 
to his intellect for him to have been so much a man. But the 
character of Bacon has already revealed to us that morals are not 
indispensable to intellectual force, and that the divine afflatus of 
the poet may find its way to the most sublime developments 
through the muddiest of filters. T am disposed, therefore, to 
accept most of the stories about Shakespeare^'s conviviality and 
gallantry, and think them less to his discredit, even when they 
stretch to the extremity of deer-stealing, than were the low con- 
trivances by which Bacon sought and retained office, or the sale 
of his judicial opinions from the bench. 

One of these stories about Shakespeare is recorded by Oldys in 
his MSS., and it is supported by such additional authority that 
we cannot help giving it full credence. It seems that it was the - 
habit of our poet, in his trips between Stratford and London, 
to bait his horses at the Crown Inn or Tavern, in Oxford, which 
was kept by Mr. John Davenant, " a grave, melancholy man,^' 
never known to laugh, who was subsequently Mayor of Oxford, 
and whose son William became afterward a poet under the title 
of Sir William Davenant. But Mrs. Davenant, the hostess, 
was by no means a grave and melancholy woman. On the con- 
trary, tradition says she was '^ very mettlesome,''^ and withal 
quite pretty. During the several years through which these 
London and Stratford trips and Oxford stoppages continued, 
scandal was very free about the terms existing between the 
buxom hostess and the London manager. " One day,^-* and we 
have this story on the authority of Pope, the poet, ^^ an old towns- 
man, observing the boy running homeward, almost out of breath, 
asked him whither he was posting in that heat and hurry. 
He answered, to see his ^of^-father Shakespeare. ' There^s a good 
boy,' said the other, ' but have a care that you don't take GocVs 
name in vain.'-" This story. Pope told at the Earl of Oxford's 
table, upon the occasion of some discourse which arose about 
Shakespeare's monument, then newly erected in Westminster 
Abbey ; and he quoted Mr. Betterton, the player, for his 
authority." ^ The tale is also mentioned by Anthony Wood ; 

^ Seed's " Shakespeare," vol. i. pp. 124, 125. 



Shakespeare s Personal Characteristics. 3 1 

and certain it is that the traditionary scandal of Oxford 
has always spoken of Shakespeare as the father of Davenant ; ^ 
^' but it imputes a crime to our author," says a reverend com- 
mentator, " of which we may, without much stretch of charity, 
acquit him. It originated in the wicked vanity of Davenant 
himself, who, disdaining- his honest, but mean descent from the 
vintner, had the shameless impiety to deny his father, and 
reproach the memory of his mother by claiming consanguinity 
with Shakespeare." 

Before leaving the sketch of Shakespeare at this point, I de- 
sire to call attention to the fact, as bearing upon the question of 
the claims set up for Bacon, that his contemporary, Ben Jonson, 
wrote a laudatory sketch of Shakespeare in his introduction to 
the plays, and gave the highest stamp of his approbation to the 
Bard of Avon^s genius by the famous, but generally mis- 
quoted line, 

" He was not of an age, but for all time." 

This naturally brings us to the disposal of a common error, on 
which the Baconians place very great reliance. I allude to the 
popular tradition that Shakespeare thought with such facility that 
he never blotted out a line. Ben Jonson, in his " Discoveries," 
mentions this preposterous statement as follows : " I remember 
the players have often mentioned it, as an honour to Shake- 
speare, that in writing (whatsoever he penned) he never blotted 
out a line. My answer hath been, ^ Would he had blotted out a 
thousand I'' which they thought a malevolent speech. I had not 
told posterity this, but for their ignorance who chose that cir- 
cumstance to commend their friend by, wherein he most faulted ; 
and to justify mine own candour, for I loved the man, and do 
honour his memory, on this side idolatry, as much as any. He 
was, indeed, honest, and of an open and free nature, had an ex- 
cellent fancy, brave notions, and gentle expressions ; wherein he 
flowed with that felicity that sometimes it was necessary he 
should be stopped; 8uffiaminand%is erat, as Augustus said to 
Haterius. His wit was in his own power ; would the rule of it 
had been so too."" 

I have said that this report of the players is perfectly pre- 

2 Eeed, note ix., pp. 126, 127. 



32 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

posterous, because nothing is better known to those who are at 
all familiar with theatrical affairs that actors rarely or ever see 
an author's manuscript, the necessities of distribution of the text 
and of study among* the various members of a dramatic company, 
requiring always the assistance of the copyist^s art. But to set 
this fable at rest, I request attention to the following specimens 
of Shakespeare's handwriting in the form of signatures on the 
pages of his will. 

These, and two other signatures, one in a book and the other 
to a mortgage deed, are the only five specimens of Shakespeare's 




" hand " extant/ and the bare sight of all of them is sufficient to 
refute the idea that they represent facility ; or, that when his 
penmanship had reached this cramped condition, it could have been 
made serviceable in the way of copying. And it must not be 
supposed that the above signatures were appended to Shake- 
speare's will during the feebleness of his last moments, for the 
document to which they are attached bears date 22nd March, 

^ The utter extinction of all the Shakespeare manuscripts is attributed to 
the great fire of London, and two fires which occurred in Stratford. 



Shakespeare's Personal Characteristics. 33 

1616; whereas he did not die until the 33rd of the next month 
— and then rather unexpectedly, as we have seen. Besides, the 
two other signatures are precisely similiar. 

There is still another proof against the copying theory that 
logically connects itself with this portion of the case. Among 
the ear-marks which indicate the plays to be the production of 
one who had been a professional player, are the constantly re- 
curring evidences in the body of the text of what is known 
among actors as '' stage business." Striking specimens of this 
professional mystery are to be found in Hamlet's directions to 
the players, and in Peter Quince's distribution of the copied 
parts and '^ properties '' to Bottom and his mates, in ''Mid- 
summer Night's Dream." But these proofs of the playwright's 
technical and professional experience abound throughout the 
Shakespeare plays to such a degree that it has been said by 
actors that the very language and . disposition of the scenes m 
the Shakespeare pieces make "stage business" of themselves. 
This kind of expertry could hardly have been acquired by Bacon ; 
neither could it have been imparted by a teacher; nor yet could a 
copyist of less intellectual capacity than the author have written 
such matter " in " and made it fit. In fact, this " stage business" 
in Shakespeare is so blended with, and fashioned to the text, that 
it could not have been inserted after writing without ruining 
the structure; nor could it have been removed therefrom without 
bleeding out a portion of its life. 



34 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE RELIGION OP THE SHAKESPEIRB PAMILY. 

We have now brouglit our observations down to a pointy, as 
between Bacon and Shakespeare, where it becomes in order to 
follow our inquiry into the religious belief of William Shake- 
speare ; and if it shall appear that our poet was beyond all 
reasonable doubt a Roman Catholic, we shall be able to account 
for several things which might otherwise remain disputable. If, 
finally, we shall show — after tracing all the probabilities of circum- 
stantial proof — that the unvarying sentiment and verbal testi- 
mony of the plays indicate the writer to have been of the religion 
of the Church of Rome; that they show him to be entirely 
familiar with its dogmas, tenets, practices, and formula ; that he 
rarely if ever alludes to a priest without apparently folding his 
arms across his breast and reverently bowing his head; and, 
beyond all, that he not only betrays a profound ignorance of the 
formula of Protestantism, but never alludes to a Protestant 
preacher, or a Puritan as he prefers to call him, without derision 
and contempt ; I think it may be considered we have brought the 
Baconian portion of our inquiry to a close — to a close, through 
what must then become the general verdict, that the plays as- 
cribed to William Shakespeare could not possibly have been the 
work of a confirmed and bitter Protestant like Sir Francis 
Bacon. 

The ancestors of William Shakespeare, on both sides, seem to 
have been persons of some note. It is claimed by several writers 
that the name of Chacksper, or Shackspeare, or Shakespeare, '^ a 
martial name however spelt,'' says Knight, figured among 
squires at arms as early as the battle of Hastings, won by the 
" Conqueror'' in 1066. The battle of Bosworth Field, however. 



The Religion of the Shakespeare Family. 3 5 

in which the Earl of Richmond (afterwards Henry VII.) over- 
threw Richard III. in 1485^ makes the first definite historical 
presentation of both the paternal and maternal lines of the 
Shakespeare family. The grant of a coat of arms in 1599 to 
Shakespeare''s own father^ recites of " John Shakespeare^ now of 
Stratford-on-Avon/^ that his " antecessor, for his faithful and ap- 
proved service to the late most prudent prince, King Henry VII., 
of famous memory, was advanced and rewarded with lands and 
tenements, given to him in those parts of Warwickshire where 
they have continued by some descents in good reputation and 
credit." 

The mother of Shakespeare was Mary Arden, the youngest of 
the seven daughters of Robert Arden, one of whose ancestors 
had rendered some public service (probably at Bosworth Field) 
for which he was rewarded with the position of Groom of the 
Chamber to Henry VII. ^' He seems," says Malone, ^' to have 
been a favourite ; for he had a valuable lease granted to him by 
the king, of the manor of Yoxsall, in Staffordshire, and was also 
made keeper of the royal park of Aldcar." " Mary Arden ! " ex- 
claims Knight in a sort of rhapsody ; " the name breathes of 
poetry. It seems the personification of some Dryad, called by 
that generic name of Arden — a forest with many towers. High 
as was her descent, wealthy and powerful as were the numerous 
branches of her family, Mary Arden, we doubt not, led a life of 
usefulness as well as innocence within her native forest hamlet." 
Her father died in December, 1556, and his will, which bears 
date 24th November of that year, indicates his religious faith by 
opening as follows : — 

" First, I bequeath my soul to Almighty God, and to our 
blessed Lady St. Mary, and to all the holy company of heaven." 
Mary had the best position in her father's will, and was made 
one of its executors, along with her sister Alice, Knight, who 
will not have Shakespeare to have been a Catholic on any show- 
ing, does not think " that the wording of this will is any proof 
of Robert Arden's religious opinions;" but Halliwell, who is 
equally as stiff" as Knight in his Protestantism, says that the 
testator " was undoubtedly a Catholic, as appears by his allusion 
to our blessed Lady Saint Mary in his will." ^ And the faith of 

* Halliwell's " Shakespeare," p. 15. 



2)6 Shakespeare, from an American Point of Viezv. 

the fatlier thus soleniuly expressed^ and made the vehicle of his 
hist fond paternal trust, doubtless remained precious to the 
daughter. 

Of the relig'ious faith of John Shakespeare, the father of our 
poet, who n^arried Mary Arden, Halliwell and the great majority 
of the biographers express the opinion, or leave it to be inferred, 
that he was of the reformed religion, and consequently Protes- 
tant. They support this view with the fact that John Shake- 
speare had held municipal offices in Stratford, which required 
him to swear adhesion to the piinciples of Protestantism, and to 
acknowledge the Queen of England instead of the Pope, as the 
head of the Church. This is a plausible presentation, certainly ; 
but wlien we reflect upon the bitter religious strifes of that tran- 
sition period between the Romish and the Reformed Church, and 
observe to what extent the Catholic clergy excused such political 
oaths, when they might assist them in picketing out adherents to 
posts of power, the argument loses a great portion of its force. 
The domestic history of every civil war will show numerous in- 
stances of malcontents and nonconformists getting into office 
under government by deceptive protestations. Tlie period of the 
Cavaliers and the Roundheads was full of such cases, and to be 
more familiar, I may refer to the fact that during the late eon- 
test in the United States between the North and South there 
were swarms of Confederates snugly nooked in the Union 
Custom-houses; while, on the other hand, many a Northern 
hypocrite was supporting rebellion in the South with the view of 
stealing cotton, or of profiting by his perfidy in some other way ; all 
readily swallowing the ironclad oaths of allegiance of either section, 
without the palliating pressure of either conscience or religion. 

But we. have what may be regarded as direct proofs on the 
subject of John Shakespeare^s religious faith. One of these 
proofs is the fact that a Protestant commission, which had been 
appointed by the Government to inquire into the conformity of 
tlie people of Warwickshire to the established religion, ^' with a 
special eye to Jesuits, priests, and recusants" reported many 
persons " for not coming monthlie to the churche, according to 
hir Majestie's lawes.''* Among these derelicts was John Shake- 
speare, but the commissioners specially note him, and eight 
others, as possibly not coming to church for fear of process for 
debt. One of these commissioners was Sir Thomas Lucy, aPuri- 



The Religion of the SJiakespeai^e Family. 3 7 

tan, which latter fact, as well as this report against the poet^s 
father, may account for the subsequent invasion by Shakespeare 
of Sir Thomas Lucy^s park, and also for the bitter pasquinade 
which the poetic youngster launched against Sir Thomas for his 
prosecution of that trespass. 

The most direct and absolute proof, however, that John. Shake- 
speare was of the Eoman Catholic religion, may be seen in. his 
formal " Confession of Faith,'''' which was found nearly two 
hundred years after his death, and the discovery of which is 
described by Dr. Drake as follows : — 

"About the year 1770 a master bricklayer of the name of 
Mosely, being employed by Mr. Thomas Hart, the fifth in 
descent in a direct line from the poet^s sister, Joan Hart, to new 
tile a house, in which he (Hart) then lived, and which is supposed 
to be that under whose roof the bard was bom, found hidden be- 
tween the rafters and the tiling of the house a manuscript, con- 
sisting of six leaves stitched together, in the form of a small 
book. This manuscript Mosely, who bore the character of an 
honest and industrious man, gave (without asking or receiving 
any recompense) to Mr. Peyton, an alderman of Stratford, and 
this gentleman very kindly sent it to Mr. Malone, through the 
medium of the Eev. Mr. Davenport, vicar of Stratford.'^ "^ 
Drake, p. 9 j Reed, vol. iii. pp. 197, 198. 

Chalmers, in his "Apology for the Believers in the Shake- 
speare Papers,^^ remarks upon this document that, '' From the 
sentiments and the language, this confession appears to be the 
efiusion of a Eoman Catholic mind, and was probably di'awn up 
by some Roman Catholic priest. If these premises be granted 
it will follow, as a fair deduction, that the family of Shakespeare 
were Eoman Catholics — a circumstance which is wholly consistent 
with what Mr. Malone is now studious to inculcate, viz., that 
this confession could not have been the composition of any of our 
poet''s family. The thoughts, the language, the orthography, all 
demonstrate the truth of my conjecture, though Mr. Malone did 
not perceive this truth when he first published this paper in 1790. 
But it was the performance of a clerk — the undoubted work of 
the family priest. The conjecture that Shakespeare^s family were 

^ For extracts from this " Confession of Faith," and remarks thereon by 
Drake, see Xote at the conclusion of this chapter, 
4 



38 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

Roman Catholics is streng-thened by the fact that his father de- 
clined to attend the Corporation meetings^ and was at last removed 
from the corporate body/' 

" But/' continues Chalmers, " this reasoning" is confirmed by 
the consideration that the reign of Elizabeth was a period of 
apparent piety _, and the reign of James I. an age of religious specu- 
lation. To own particular modes of faith became extremely fashion- 
able during both those periods. It was probably by this fashion 
that Lord Bacon, the prince of philosophers, was induced to draw 
up Ms Confession of Faith, in order to please a monarch who 
interested himself in religious theories." ^ 

" Every logician would infer/'' still continues Chalmers, " that 
if it (John Shakespeare's ' Catholic Confession of Faith ' ) had been 
the custom of the family, which was followed by the father, it is 
extremely probable the same custom would be also followed by 
the son, who at times cannot conceal his faith, even in his 
dramas." 

This last surmise of Chalmers suggests the thought that the 
Great Fire of London, several fires at Stratford, and especially the 
fire by which the Globe Theatre was destroyed (to which accidents 
the absence of any scrap of William Shakespeare's handwriting 
has been attributed), may also be held to account for the non- 
appearance of any " Confession of Faith " on his part. It appears, 
by the allusion which Chalmers makes above to Lord Bacon's 
" Confession of Faith," that such religious documents were 
common in that age to men of all persuasions. Nevertheless 
they appear to have had a sort of solemn secrecy attached to 
them, and from what we gather from Dr. Drake's remark in a 
subjoined note it is not unlikely that Shakespeare's " Confession of 
Faith," if he made one, was quietly buried with him. Perhaps 
this particular fact was reliably known (through the Fulman 
papers) to the Rev. Richard Davies, who, writing after 1688, 
flatly says that " Shakespeare died a Papist." * 

3 " Chalmers's Apology," sect, v., pp. 198 — 200. 

■• The Eev. William Tulman, who died in 1688, bequeathed his biographical 
collections to his friend, the Rev. Richard Davies, rector, of Sapperton, in 
Gloucestershire, who made several additions to them. Davies died in 1708, 
and these manuscripts were presented to the library of Corpus Christi 
College, Oxford, where they are still preserved. Under the article " Shake- 
speare " Fulman made very few notes, and those of little importance ; but 



The Religion of the Shakespeare Family. 39 

"But are not the official situations held by Shakespeare's 
father in the borough conclusive against the opinion which Mr. 
Chalmers has grounded upon it?-"^ indignantly exclaims a 
reverend biographer. Knight, in the same tone, says of the 
" Oath of Supremacy/-' which Shakespeare^'s father must have 
taken in order to hold office, that "to refuse this oath was made 
punishable with forfeiture and imprisonment, with the pains of 
prcemimire and high treason." To such objections I think I have 
already opposed cogent reasons why the aspiring John Shake- 
speare should not have refused to take the oath, and these of 
themselves suggest why he should have so carefully concealed his 
" Catholic Confession of Faith. ■'■' 

If it is clear that the parents of William Shakespeare were 
both devout Catholics, it is reasonable to suppose that the 
poet followed the usual instinct of a child by imbibing the re- 
ligious sentiment which filled his home, and which was breathed 
over him into his spiritual lungs, as it were, by his mother while 
he was lying in his cradle. 

The first piece of proof we have upon this subject is very posi- 
tive in its character. It comes from a clergyman who knew 
Shakespeare, and upon the examination of whose papers another 
clergyman, the Eev. Eichard Davies, declares that the poet, who 
was born a Papist, died one. Surely it should require something 



Davies inserted the curious information so important in the consideration of 
the deer-stealing story. The following is a complete copy of what the MS. 
contains respecting Shakespeare, distinguishing the addition made by Davies 
by italics : — 

" William Shakespeare was born at Stratford-upon-Avon, in Warwickshire, 
about 1563 or '64. Much given to all unluckiness in stealing venison and 
rabbits, particularly from Sir — Lucy, who had him oft whipt and some- 
times imprisoned, and at last made him fly his native country to his great 
advancement ; but his revenge was so great that he is his Justice Clodpate, 
and calls him a great man, and that in allusion to his name bore three 
louses rampant for his arms. From an actor of plays he became a composer. 
He died April 23, 1616, getat. 53, probably at Stratford, for there he is 
bur}'ed, and hath a monument (Dugd., p. 520) on which he lays a heavy 
curse upon any one who shall remove his bones. He dyed a papist.' 

This testimony has been doubted, because no such character as Clodpate 
occurs in any of Shakespeare's plays ; but it was a generic term o£ the time 
for a foolish person, and that Davies so used it there can, I think, be little 
doubt.— Halliwell, p. 123. 



40 Shakespeare, from an American Point of Vieiv. 

more than mere incredulity on the ]Dart of Protestant biographers 
to annihilate this authoritative statement. 

The positive declaration of the Rev. Dr. Davies, founded as it 
was upon documentary and other evidence, furnished to him as a 
legacy by one who may be regarded almost as cotemporary with 
the poet, must therefore be taken as proof of that fact, not 
to be affected by any testimony less absolute in its character, 
and certainly not removed, unless sapped quite away by a steady 
and resistless flow of circumstantial evidence, breaking constantly 
as our proofs do, through the current of the poet''s life, and con- 
tinually dropping from him in his writings. 

Unfortunately for the Protestant side of the argument, the 
first thing we fall upon in corroboration of the Rev. Dr. Davies' 
declaration, is the fact that it was made two years previous to the 
discovery by Mosely of John Shakespeare's " Confession of Faith.''' 
The next proof we have of the tendency of circumstances to keep 
William Shakespeare faithful to the precepts of his infancy is the 
Puritan persecution, by Sir Thomas Lucy and the other Protes- 
tant Commissioners of Stratford, of John Shakespeare, the father, 
and subsequent punishment by Sir Thomas of William the son. 
In London the young adventurer was immediately met by the 
same spirit of sectarian intolerance as had harassed his family in 
Stratford, and which again challenged him, as it were, upon the 
very threshold of his new efforts to pluck a living from the world. 
Por we are told by the historians of the Sliakespearian period 
that the contest which the Theatre had to undergo for an existence, 
about the time Shakespeare went up to London was between the 
holders of opposite opinions in religion. " The Puritans,'-* says 
Knight, "made the Theatre the special object of their indigna- 
tion." So the Protestant crusade, which began against Shake- 
speare's father, which had been continued against Shakespeare 
himself, before he arrived at man's estate in Stratford, maintained 
a ceaseless, unremitting warfare against his chosen avocation in 
the great metropolis. 

Thus, having shown the religious conditions under which the 
poet's mind was formed, the pressure of circumstances operating 
upon his filial bent and tending to render inexorable the opinions 
thus initiated, we come logically to the examination of Shake- 
speare's personal testimony on the subjects of doctrine and religious 
faith, as exhibited in the spontaneous utterances of his plays. 



His Knowledge of the Mariner s Art. 41 

I confess that T have, from the first, contemplated the 
discussion of this portion of ray subject with some misgiving-, 
but the manifest reluctance betrayed by most of the Shake- 
spearian commentators to touch the question, and the disposition 
exhibited to follow in the beaten track, makes me less diffi- 
dent than at the outset. The readiest instance which comes 
to me to illustrate this tendency of the reviewers to follow the 
old finger-posts, is the common idea that Shakespeare had 
such a miraculous poetic intuition that he needed no learning 
to acquire knowledge, as did other men. One of the familiar 
proofs which is offered of this wondrous faculty of the Bard of 
Avon is, the felicity and force with which they say he handles 
the mariner's art, and especially in the power and truth with 
which he describes the behaviour of a vessel in a gale. 

" The very management of the ship in the ' Tempest,'" says one 
of these learned commentators, " may have been the fruit either 
of casual observation or of what men of letters call 'cram,' 
rapidly assimilated by his genius." And again, this same 
writer, in expressing his sense of the power of the poet's 
intuitive comprehension, directs our attention to that fine 
description in Henry the Eighth of ''the outburst of admiration 
and loyalty of the multitude at sight of Anne BuUen, as if he 
(Shakespeare) had spent his life on shipboard." 

" Such a noise arose 
As the shrouds make at sea in a stiff tempest ; 
As loud, and to as many tunes." 

" And yet," concludes this writer, '' of all negative facts in regard 
to Ills (Shakespeare's) life, none; perhaps, is surer than that he 
never was at sea."^ Why, who does not know that Shakespeare 
was an Englishman, and as such may be .almost said to have 
been born at sea? The shores of England lie among roaring 
waves, and a poet can often find before his eyes as much turbulent, 
spiteful, howling, and dangerous water by looking from the cliif 
at Dover, or even from the jetty at Margate, as he would meet 
with in traversing a thousand miles at sea. Every Londoner 
who can afford a holiday goes to the seaside in summer, and a 
man who ventures in a fishing-boat a mile from shore on any 
portion of the English or Irish coast is as wide at sea — ay, and 

* Eichard Grant White's " Shakespeare," p. 259. 



42 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

sometimes worse at sea than if he were wearily swinging round 
Cape Horn. The Earl of Salisbury, who probably had never been 
more at sea than Shakespeare, and who, like all Englisbmen who 
had travelled on tlie continent only, doubtless got all his know- 
ledge of the ocean from the twenty-one mile trip between Dover 
and Calais, in the English Channel, is made to say, in "King 
John,'^— 

" And like a shifted wind unto a sail, 

It makes the course of thoughts to fetch, about ; 

Startles and frights consideration." 

This shows no more than that Shakespeare had at some time 
been out on a fishing or boating excursion, or had looked upon 
the chafing ocean from the land. 

Mr. White, pursuing the same subject of Shakespeare's wonder- 
ful intuitiveness, says, " We may be very sure that he made no 
special study of natural phenomena ; and indeed no condition of 
his life seems surer than that it afforded him neither time nor 
opportunity for such studies. Yet, in the following lines from 
the sixty-fourth sonnet, an important geological fact serves him 
for illustration : — 

" When I have seen the hungry ocean gain 
Advantage on the kingdom of the shore, 
And the firm soil win of the watery main. 
Increasing store with loss, and loss with store. * * " 

" Where, and how, and why had Shakespeare,^' exclaims Mr. 
White, " observed a great operation of nature like this, which 
takes many years to effect changes which are perceptible?'' The 
answer suggests itself — Why what New York boy, say we, who 
has enjoyed holiday afternoons in visits to the beach at Coney 
Island ; or what Londoner who has made similar trips to por- 
tions of the English coast, has not seen the shore, one season 
over-reached and devoured by the flood, receive restitution 
during the next season by the ocean heaving the plunder 
back to some adjacent spot ? And pray where did Mr. White 
get Ids knowledge of this phenomenon from ? Did he get it 
from his books ? Again Mr. White, while defending Shake- 
speare with much warmth, from what he terms '' the reproach of 
Papistry," states that the Bard nowhere shows a leaning towards 
any form of church government or towards any theological 
tenet or dogma. And this, notwithstanding the poet's constant 



The Religion of the Shakespeare Family. 43 

allusions to holy friars^ to shrift, to purging fires and confession ; 
is about as sensible as to declare him a moral writer, in face of 
the abominably foul-tongued characters of Parolles, Falstaff, and 
Doll Tear-Sheet/ 

I find but one point made by Mr. White in favour of his 
declaration that Shakespeare was not a Roman Catholic, which 
appears at first sight to be well taken. " If Shakespeare became 
a member of the Church of Rome/' says he, " it must have 
been after he wrote "Romeo and Juliet,'-' in which he speaks of 
evening mass ; for the humblest member of that church knows 
that there is no mass at vespers.'' A mistake which, I admit, 
that Bacon with his learning could not possibly have made; 
though Shakespeare might have done so ; as it is doubtful if he 
ever heard mass performed either at Stratford or in London. 

Reserving this point to be treated of in the next chapter, I 
herewith append the full confession of the " Confession of Faith " 
of John Shakespeare previously referred to.' 

^ In the famous scene between the Ghost and Hamlet there are many 
strokes of a Eoman Catholic pen. " Shakespeare, apparently through igno- 
rance," says Warburton, " makes 'Roman Catholics of these Pagan Danes " 
(Steevens' Shak., 1793, vol. xv. pp. 72 — 75). But this is not so much an 
example of ignorance as of Jcnoioledge, though perhaps not of his prudence, 
when the poet avows, covertly indeed, his oion opinions. In " Othello," Shake- 
speare makes Emilia say, " I should venture purgatory for't." The readers 
of Shakespeare will easily remember other expressions of a similar kind, 
which plainly proceeded from the overflow of Eoman Catholic zeal. He is 
continually sending his characters to sJirift, or confession : " Eiddling con- 
fession finds but riddling shrift ; " " Bid her devise some means to come to 
shrift this afternoon." On the other hand he is studious to show his con- 
tempt for the Puritans. In " Twelfth Night " : " Marry, sir, he seems some- 
times a kind of Puritan." In " The Winter's Tale " : " But one Puritan among 
them, and he sings psalms to hornpipers." — Chalmers's " Apology," p. 200. 

7 " JOHN SHAKESPEAEE'S CONFESSION OP FAITH :— 

Section I. 

" ' In the name of God, the Father, Sonne, and Holy Ghost, the most holy 
and blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, the holy host of archangels, angels, 
patriarchs, prophets, evangelists, apostles, saints, martyrs, and all the celestial 
court and company of heaven : I, John Shakspear, an unworthy member of 
the holy Catholic religion, being at this, my present writing, in perfect 
health of body, and sound mind, memory, and understanding, but calling to 
mind the uncertainty of life and certainty of death, and that I may be 
possibly cut off in the blossome of my sins, and called to render an account 



44 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

of all my transgressions externally and internally, and that I may be unpre- 
pared for the dreadful trial either by sacrement, pennance, fasting, or prayer, 
or any other purgation whatever, do in the holy presence above specified, of 
my own free and voluntary accord, make and ordaine this, my last spiritual 
will, testament, confession, protestation, and confession of faith, hopinge 
hereby to receive pardon for all my sinnes and offences, and thereby to be 
made partaker of life everlasting, through the only merits of Jesus Christ, 
my saviour and redeemer, who took upon himself the likeness of man, 
suffered death, and was crucified upon the crosse, for the redemption of 
sinners. 

\Sere follow the remaining sections, doicn to Section ^III. inclusive.'] 
Section XIV., and last. 

" ' I, John Shakspeare, having made this present writing of protestation, 
confession, and charter, in presence of the blessed Virgin Mary, my angell 
guardian, and all the celestial court, as witnesses hereunto : the which my 
meaning is, that it be of full value now, presently, and for ever, with the 
force and vertue of testament, codicil, and donation in course of death : con- 
firming it anew, being in perfect health of soul and body, and signed with 
mine own hand ; carrying also the same about me, and for the better declara- 
ratiou hereof, my will and intention is that it be finally buried with me after 
my death. 

" ' Pater noster, Ave Maria, Credo. 

Jesu, son of David, have mercy on me. Amen.' " 

" If the intention of the testator, as expressed in the close of this will, were 
carried into effect, then of course the manuscript which Mosely found must 
necessarily have been a copy of that which was buried in the grave of John 
Shakespeare. 

" Mr. Malone, to whom, in his edition of Shakespeare, printed in 1790, we 
are indebted for this singular paper, and for the history attached to it 
observes, that he is unable to ascertain whether it was drawn up by John 
Shakespeare, the father, or by John, his supposed eldest son : but he says, ' I 
have taken some pains to ascertain the authenticity of this manuscript, and, 
after a very careful inquiry, am perfectly satisfied that it is genuine.' In the 
' Inquiry,' however, which was published in 1796, relative to the Ireland 
papers, he has given us, though without assigning any reasons for his change 
of opinion, a very different result. 'In my conjecture,' he remarks, 'con- 
cerning the writer of that paper, I certainly was mistaken : for I have since 
obtained documents that clearly prove it could not have been the composition 
of any one of our poet's family.' 

" This conjecture of Mr. Chalmers appears to us in its leading points very 
plausible ; for that the father of our poet might be a Eoman Catholic, is, if 
we consider the very unsettled state of his times with regard to religion, not 
only a possible, but a probable supposition, in which case it would undoubtedly 
have been the oflBce of the spiritual director of the family to have drawn up 
such a paper as that which we have been perusing. It was the fashion also 
of the period, as Mr. Chalmers has subsequently observed, to draw up confes- 
sions of religious faith, a fashion honoured in the observance by the great 



The Religio7i of the Shakespeare Family. 45 

names of Lord Bacon, Lord Burghley, and Ardibishop Parker. That he 
declined, however, attending the corporation meeting of Stratford from 
religious motives, and that his removal from that body was the result of 
non-attendance from such a cause, cannot readily be admitted ; for we have 
clearly seen that his defection was owing to pecuniary difficulties ; nor is it in 
the least degree probable that, after having honourably filled the highest 
offices in the corporation without scruple, he should at length, and in a reign 
too popularly Protestant, incur expulsion from an avowed motive of this kind, 
especially, as we have reason to suppose, from the mode in which this profes- 
sion was concealed, that the tenets of the person whose faith it declares were 
cherished in secret. 

" From an accurate inspection of the handwriting of this will, Mr. Malone 
infers that it cannot be attributed to an earlier period than the year 1600, 
whence it follows that if dictated by, or drawn up at the desire of, John 
Shakespeare, his death soon sealed the confession of his faith ; for^ according 
to the register, he was bm-ied on September 8, 1601." — Drake, vol. i. pp. 
9—14. 



46 Shakespeaix^ from an American Point of View, 



CHAPTER VII. 

EVENING MASS. 

At the conclusion of the last chapter we found ourselves con- 
fronted with the apparent difficulty of Shakespeare's alleged 
erroneous use of the word evening mass, and in pursuing" the 
inquiry upon this point we have 'White''s view supported by 
similar observations from H. von Friesen in his '^Alt-England und 
William Shakespeare^-' (1874), pp. 286-7, and also by Staunton, 
who, says Dowden, '' had previously noticed the same difficulty/' 
But the word mass, continues Dowden, as used in the passage 
from " Homeo and Juliet,'" is explained by Clarke as* meaning 
generally service, office, prayer} 

I do not find this explanation satisfactory, however; neither 
can I assign great importance to the opinion of Harness and 
others, that it was probably a printer^s error, or at any rate not 
an error of Shakespeare^s own, since it is well known that he 
had never superintended the publication of a single copy of his 
plays, and that some of the first copies " appeared to have been 
taken by the ear, during representation, without any assistance 
from the originals belonging to the play-houses/^ Hence, they 
conclude, that such a mistake might have easily crept in, through 
the ignorance of a copyist or printer. " Hundreds of spurious 
lines," says one of these reasoners, "have thus been insinuated 
in Shakespeare's text ; and it is known that no complete collec- 
tion of his plays was published until seven yeai'S after his death /^ 

This is very plausible, but it must be recollected that " Romeo 

. and Juliet " was published during the poet's lifetime, as early 

as 1597; and I cannot, therefore, bring myself to believe that 

Shakespeare could have permitted himself to be indifferent to 

such an error, had he believed it to have been an error. 

^ Dowden's " Shakespeare's Mind and Art," 1875, p. 39. 



* Evening Mass. 47 

The greatest probability is that be bad never beard mass 
otherwise than secretlj^ and in the evening; except, indeed, 
during some transient trip to Paris (if he had ever found time 
during bis busy London life to make one) ; and even then it is 
doubtful if he would have spent any of bis precious holiday 
hours at church. His general knowledge of the doctrines, 
dogmas, tenets, rites and formula of the Church of Rome might 
have been obtained from bis mother, or from the carefully-hidden 
Prayer-book of the family ; while bis entire comprehension of the 
ceremony of mass was probably obtained from the hedge priests 
whom the devoted piety of his mother gave stealthy admission 
to the Shakespeare homestead, during the Elizabethan period 
of Catholic persecution. I have fomid many illustrations from 
Catholic reviews, and other reliable authorities, of the practices 
of the hedge priests, as they were called, in times of Catholic 
persecution, whose business it was to go in the darkness of the 
evening to the houses of the faithful, to celebrate a nocturnal 
mass. This was probably the case with Sbakespeare''s paternal 
home and family, and " evening mass " was doubtless the only 
mass our poet ever heard.^ 

In regard to mass in general, authoritative Eomisli works 
indicate that the main reason why it is fixed as a morning 
ceremony, is because owing to the extraordinary sanctity which 
Catholics attach to the consecrated elements (believing them as 
they do to be transubstantiated into the real body and blood of 
Christ), the early Popes deemed it irreverent on the part of the 
clergy and faithful to partake of them after a meal of a material 
kind. It would also seem, from the works of the most learned 
Catholic divines, that mass was said during that period of 
church history called " History of the Catacombs '' at night ; and 

2 " In the darkest days of the penal code, when learning was proscribed in 
Ireland, and when it was treason for the Catholic Celt to teach or be taught, 
to receive or commnnicate instruction, the hedge schoolmaster braved the 
terrors of the law, eluded the vigilance of spies, and kept the lamp of know- 
ledge still burning in darkness, storm, and desolation. If we cherish the 
memory of the Soggarth Aroon, who often at dead of night fled to the moun- 
tain cave, the wooded glen, and wild rath to celebrate mass for the faithful 
and persecuted flock, and, like the Hebrew priests of old, to preserve the sacred 
fire till the dawn of a happier era, when the sun of freedom would kindle it 
into a blaze.'' — " Paper on Bishop England," by Professor Mulrenan ; pub- 
lished in New York in the Manhattan Monthly for March, 1875. 



48 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

indeed, in the Apostolic age it was undoubtedly a nocturnal 
service, since it is in reality only a commemoration of the Last 
Supper. According" to the best authorities, it was Pope St. 
Telesphorus, a.d. 128, who ordered this service to be said in the 
morning at tierce, or at nine o^clock. This Pope likewise de- 
creed that on Christmas eve a mass might be celebrated at 
twelve o'clock at night in honour of the Nativity, and he added 
to the missal the noble hymn of praise, Gloria in Excelsis. Still, 
even after the publication of this decree, masses were said, 
during periods of persecution, in the vaults and chapels of the 
catacombs quite late at night. Once the church emerged thence 
into broad day-light, this practice ceased, and the decree of Pope 
Telesphorus was obeyed to the letter. 

During the middle ages even Catholic historians confess that 
many abuses crept into their Church, and it would seem that 
there were many gross ones concerning even the solemn rite of 
mass. The custom of saying mass for the dead was doubtless 
one of the principal causes of this deplorable state of affairs ; for, 
as is well known, persons of rank and wealth would often leave in 
their wills large sums of money to the priests, in order to defray 
the expenses of a number of masses to be said for the repose of 
their souls, and of those of their relations and friends. To rid 
themselves of the obligation of celebrating so many masses, the 
dissolute and conscienceless amongst the clergy would even run 
one mass into another, or say as many as three and four in a 
morning, without leave from their ecclesiastical superiors.^ 
They likewise invented a service called the Missa Sicca, which 
was generally said for the repose of the dead. It consisted of the 
recitation of the first part of mass, or Introit, and was a " dry 
mass," since none of the liquids were introduced into it ; for, as 
already stated^ the act of consecration did not take place. It 
was, however, called a mass, and was celebrated most frequently 
in the afternoon. The Council of Trent abolished it as a gross 
abuse, since it had occasioned much scandal. It sprang into ex- 
istence towards the eleventh century, and continued down to the 
close of the sixteenth. It was an invention doubtless of some 
unworthy clergymen, in order to free themselves of a portion 
of the numerous masses they were paid to say for the dead. It 
3 See Appleton's " Encyclopaedia," 1875, Father O'Keilly's article on the 
Mass. 



Evening Mass. 49 

could be said at any time, and as often as they chosej and hence 
they could naturally rid themselves of their responsibility at a 
very short notice ; moreover, as they could only solemnize one 
genuine mass a day, without running the risk of being suspended 
by their bishops, they could say twenty of these mutilated 
services, and count them to their purchasers as regular work. 
It is not improbable, besides, that this Missa Sicca was known to 
the common people before the Reformation as " evening mass/' 
Por in Ivanhoe, Sir Walter Scott says that Rowena arrived late 
at the banquet, as she had only just returned from attending 
" evening mass " at a neighbouring priory. It seems to me 
that Scott, who was exceedingly well versed in all things con- 
cerning the history and rites of the Catholic Church, would not 
have made this statement unless he had good authority for so 
doing/ Shakespeare may have heard of the Missa Sicca as an 
evening service, and thus alluded to it in this play ; and it may 
as well here be observed that the monastery to which Friar 
Laurence belonged was a Franciscan house, which order was, 
and is still, remarkable — to use the Catholic phraseology* — " for 
its devotion to the dead and to the souls in purgatory ;" in other 
words, for its popularity in praying and saying masses for the 
departed. Another explanation of this much disputed phrase, 
" evening mass," may also be gathered from the fact that in 
Catholic countries, to this day, the fashionable mass is the last ; 
said often at one, and even at two o'clock in the afternoon. 
•In the sixteenth century, one or two o'clock in the day was 
already a late hour, for people rose at five, breakfasted at six, 
dined between ten and eleven, and had supper at seven in the 
evening ; thus closing the day at an hour when modern ^' society '^ 
is most occupied. Shakespeare may have considered the last, or 
one o'clock mass, " an evening mass ;" and this is not so im- 
probable, since the text leads us to understand that Juliet de- 
signs to wait upon him in his cell alone, which she could 
not have done under the circumstances of the play, as a young 

4 On the other hand, by way of showing the habitual licence of poets, we 
will direct the attention of the reader to the following lines from the exquisite 
poem of " Under the Violets," by Oliver Wendell Holmes : — 

" The crickets, sliding through the grass, 
Shall pipe for her an evening mass." 

5 " History of the Tranciscans." Albany, Baxter and Co. 



50 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

girl of her age would certainly not have been allowed out alone 
at midnight. 

There is another piece of textual testimony which the Pro- 
testant biographers of Shakespeare refer to, in order to resist the 
theory that he was of the Roman Catholic faith. It is put for- 
ward in its most prominent form by Charles Knight, who, com- 
batting the inferences of Chalmers and Drake in favour of 
Shakespeare^s Romanism as evinced in his frequent references to 
" purgatory/^ " shrift/'' " confession/^ &c., in his dramas, says, 
" Surely the poet might exhibit this familiarity with the an- 
cient language of all Christendom without thus speaking from 
the overflow of Roman Catholic zeal."" Was it " Roman Catho- 
lic zeal " which induced him to write those strong lines in " King 
John " against the " Italian priest,^^ and against those who 
" Purchase corrupted pardon of a man " ? 

Was it " Roman Catholic zeal ^' which made him introduce 
these words into the famous prophecy of the glory and happiness 
of the reign of Elizabeth : — 

" God shall be truly known "? 

The first of the quotations by Knight looks very formidable ; 
and when I read the above artificial presentation of it I fancied 
I had run against an insurmountable obstacle to the theory 
that Shakespeare was a Roman Catholic. But turning to the 
fountain of the phrase in the body of the text, I found that the 
quotation had been warped from its true meaning by the critic, 
and made, by a few accompanying words, to present a proposi- 
tion which was not the author's. No one could read Knight-'s pre- 
sentation of the quotation, along with his unwarranted words, 
without supposing it was launched not only against the one 
person addressed, but against all " those who purchased *" cor- 
rupted ' pardon of a man/' or without coming to the conclusion 
that Shakespeare meant to deride and reject the sanctity of that 
vital principle of the Roman Catholic faith, the rite of con- 
fession — and the consequent prerogatives of punishment and ab- 
solution ! And I readily admit that no Roman Catholic writer 
could ever have permitted himself to do this under any pressure 
of poetical necessity. But William Shakespeare never did it — 
never in the plays ascribed to him, at least. 

The line above quoted by Knight against Shakespeare's Catho- 



Religion of Shakespeare. 5 1 

licity is addressed by King Jolm to King Philip Augustus of 
France^ and applies to Pandulph, the Legate of the Pope^ who 
had then recently been despatched from Rome to England, to 
demand of King John the inimediate appointment of Stephen 
Langton^ the Pope^s nominee^ to the archbishopric of Canterbury 
on pain of excommunication ; and also to interrogate him (King 
John) why he had thus far been contumacious to the supreme 
orders of his Holiness in this respect. Pandulph, in pursuance 
of this insolent commission, finds John in France, at the head of 
an English army of invasion, confronting a like array of the 
French legions under the command of- Philip. Seizing the 
opportunity thus afforded him of making his insolence the more 
conspicuous, Pandulph, in the presence of the two kings, sur- 
rounded by their respective nobles, delivers his arrogant message. 
The English king is naturally roused to anger and resistance by 
this insult, whereupon Shakespeare, through the mouth of John, 
treats the prelate in the political attitude he had assumed, and 
makes John speak with the spirit and dignity which became an 
English king.- The practice of '^ fitting " his characters, is in- 
variable with our poet, and is also in full accordance with dramatic 
rules and conimon sense. It is in agreement, likewise, with the 
practice of other Roman Catholic writers, as may be seen in the 
treatment given by Dumas to the Cardinals Mazarin and 
Richelieu. When the churchman sinks his profession in the 
character of an ambassador, he is dealt with as a politician ; and 
when a king (whom, as a king, Shakespeare always worships 
upon bended knees) abandons himself to crime and despotism, he is 
always, as in the case of Richard III. and of John also, treated as a 
tyrant and a murderer. In these crimes the assassin sinks the 
king ; as the primate, by his ambition, veils the priest. It was 
the only method by which the poet could protect his faith from 
the necessities of history, and consequently the epithets he uses 
through the mouths of his incensed characters, as " false priest " 
and " meddling priest,^'' are only such as are irresistible to anger • 
under any and all circumstances. Shakespeare \^as too well 
versed in human nature not to know that an inflamed mind will 
always assail its enemy where he is most false, and consequently 
where he is most weak — always preferring an accusation of 
hypocrisy to any other. But here I prefer to let the text speak 
to the reader for itself : — 



52 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

King John, Act III. Scene 1. 
France— the French King's tent. Present — King John, King Philip, 
Archduhe of Austria, Faulconbridge, Lewis, the French Dauphin, Salis- 
bury/, Arthur, Constance, Blanche, Elinor, and attendants, 

Fnter Pandulph. 

K. Phi. Here comes the holy legate of the pope. 

Pand. Hail, you anointed deputies of Heaven ! 
To thee, king John, my holy errand is, 
I Pandulph, of fair Milan cardinal, 
And from pope Innocent the legate here, 
Do, in his name, religiously demand. 
Why thou against the church, our holy mother, 
So wilfully dost spurn ; and, force perforce. 
Keep Stephen Langton, chosen archbishop 
Of Canterbury, from that holy see ? 
This, in our 'foresaid holy father's name, 
Pope Innocent, I do demand of thee. 

K. John. What earthly name to interrogatories 

Can task the free breath of a sacred king ? 

Thou canst not, cardinal, devise a name 

So slight, unworthy, and ridiculous. 

To charge me to an answer, as the pope. 

Tell him this tale ; and from the mouth of England 

Add thus much more, — That no Italian priest 

Shall tithe or toll in our dominions ; 

But as we under heaven are supreme head. 

So, under Him, that great supremacy 

Where we do reign, we will alone uphold 

Without the assistance of a mortal hand ; 

So tell the pope ; all reverence set apart. 

To him, and his usurp'd authority. 

K. Phi. Brother of England, you blaspheme in this. 

K. John. Though you, and all the kings of Christendom, 
Are led so grossly by this meddling priest. 
Dreading the curse that money may buy out ; 
And by the merit of vile gold, dross, dust, 
Purchase corrupted pardon of a man, 
Who, in that sale, sells pardon from himself; 
Though you, and all the rest, so grossly led. 
This juggling witchcraft with revenue cherish ; 
Yet I, alone, alone do me oppose 
Against the Pope, and count his friends my foes. 

Pand. Then by the lawful power that I have. 

Thou shalt stand cursed, and excommunicate : 
And blessed shall he be that doth revolt 
From his allegiance to an heretic : 



Religion of Shakespeare. 53 

And meritorious shall that hand he calVd, 
Canonized, and worshipp'd as a saint. 
That taJces aivay by any secret course 
Thy hateful life. 
****** 

Philip of France, on peril of a curse, 
Let go the hand of that arch-heretic ; 
And raise the power of Prance upon his head. 
Unless he do submit himself to Eome. 

Tt* w w ^ ')p «v 

E. Phi. My reverend father, let it not be so : 

Out of your grace, devise, ordain, impose * 

Some gentle order ; and then we shall be hless'd 

To do your pleasure, and continue friends. 
Pand. All form is formless, order orderless. 

Save what is opposite to England's love. 

Therefore, to arms, be champion of our church ! 

Or let the church, our mother, breathe her curse, 

A mother's curse, on her revolting son. 

Prance, thou may'st hold a serpent by the tongue, 

A chafed lion by the mortal paw, 

A fasting tiger safer by the tooth, 

Than keep, in peace, that hand which thou dost hold. 

****** 
Lew. I muse, your majesty doth seem so cold. 

When such profound respects do pull you on. 
Pand. I will denounce a curse upon his head. 
K. Phi. Thou shalt not need : — England, I'll fall from thee. 
K. John. France, thou shalt rue this hour within this hour. 

In i-he light of these quotations it becomes obvious that 
Knight^s presentation of the first italicized line, with its in- 
ferential words, had the object of making it appear that 
Shakespeare was deriding and mocking at the sanctity of the rite 
of confession ; and this plain perversion of the author^s meaning 
was, consequently, not only an abuse of the truth, but an insult, 
by Mr. Knight, to the understanding of his readers. The whole 
scene represents no independent sentiment of Shakespeare as a 
writer, any more than does the language of John, when he orders 
Hubert to commit murder upon Arthur, represent Shakespeare's 
sentiments ; or than the words of Richard III. represent the poet's 
principles, when Richard directs the assassination of the Princes in 
the Tower. But Ave can perceive by the course of the play of King 
John, where the poet does step in and takes sides ; and, when he 
does make his individual inclinations thus seen, he decides most 
5 



54 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

signally in favour of the Prelate and tte Church. He shows 
that John, on the contrary, with all his resolution and surround- 
ings, cannot withstand its power, but surrenders to it, humbles 
himself abjectly before the Legate, and is finally consigned to 
an ignominious death. In the scene immediately following the 
above, we find King John, while still in the heighb of his 
resentment, giving an order to his creature, Faulconbridge, to 
hasten to England, and ransack and plunder the monasteries : — 

King John {to the Bastard), 
• Cousin, away to England ; haste before ; 

And, ere our coming, see thou shake the bags 
Of hoarding abbots ; imprisoned angels 
Set at liberty : the fat ribs of peace 
Must by the hungry now be fed upon : 
Use our commission in his lotmost force I 
Bastard. Bell, book, and candle shall not drive me back. 
When gold and silver becks me to come on. 

At the opening of Act V. we find that King John, unable to 
contend any longer, even in his own dominions, against the power 
of the Pope, makes absolute submission and resigns his crown, in 
order that he may undergo the utter humiliation of receiving it 
back from his haughty hands and of holding it subject to his 
breath : — 

Act V. — A "Room in the 'Palace. 
Enter KiNa John, Pandulph with the crown, and attendants. 
Z. John. Thus have 1 yielded up into you hand 

The circle of my glory. 
Pand. Take again [Giving John the crown. 

From this my hand, as holding of the pope. 
Your sovereign greatness and authority. 
K. John. Now keep your holy word : go meet the French : 
And from his holiness use all your power 
To stop their marches, 'fore we are inflamed. 
Our discontented counties do revolt ; 
Our people quarrel with obedience 
Swearing allegiance, and the love of soul, 
To stranger blood, to foreign royalty. 
This inundation of mistemper'd humour 
Eests by you only to be qualified. 
Then pause not ; for the present time's so sick, 
That present medicine must be minister 'd, 
Or overthrow incurable ensues. 



Religion of Shakespeare. cr 

Pand. It was my breath that blew this tempest up, 
Upon your stubborn usage of the pope : 
But, since you are a gentle convertite. 
My tongue shall hush again this storm of war, 
And make fair weather in your blustering land. 
On this Ascension-day, remember well, 
Upon your oath of service to the pope, 
Go I to make the Trench lay down their arms. 

Here the Pope's Legate finishes with John. Now let us see 
what luck the poet assigns to Pandulph, in his assumptions of 
Papal supremacy over the King of France. Carrying out his con- 
tract with King John, Pandulph next appears before the French 
forces, which, under the charge of Lewis the Dauphin, have in- 
vaded England, and are lying in camp near St. Edmunds- 
Bury : — 

Act Y. Scene 2. 
Present— L-Ewis, the Dauphin, Salisbuet, Melun, Pembeoke, Bigot, 

and Soldiers. 
Enter Pandulph, attended. 
Lew. And even there, methinks, an angel spake ; 

Look, where the holy legate comes apace. 
To give us warrant from the hand of heaven ; 
And on our actions set the name of right, 
"With holy breath. 
•P^^^- Hail, noble prince of Prance ; 

The next is this — King John hath reconcil'd 
Himself to Eome : his spirit is come in. 
That so stood out against the holy church, 
The great metropolis and see of Eome ; 
Therefore, thy threat'ning colours now wind up, 
And tame the savage spirit of wild war ; 
That, like a lion foster 'd up at hand. 
It may lie gently at the foot of peace, 
And be no further harmful than in show. 
Lew. Your grace shall pardon me, I will not back ; 

I am too high-born to be propertied. 
To be a secondary at control. 
Or useful serving-man, and instrument, 
To any sovereign state throughout the world. 
Your breath first kindled the dead coal of wars 
Between this chastised kingdom and myself, 
And brought in matter that should feed this fire ; 
And now 'tis far too huge to be blown out 
With that same weak wind which enkindled it. 



56 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

You tauglit me how to know the face of right, 

Acquainted me with interest to this land, 

Yea, thrust this enterprise into my heart ; 

And come you now to tell me, John hath made 

His peace with Eome ? What is that peace to me ? 

I, by the honour of my marriage-bed. 

After young Arthur, claim this land for mine ; 

And, now it is half conquer'd, must I back, 

Because that John hath made his peace with Eome ? 

Am I Eome's slave ? "What penny hath Eome borne, 

"What men provided, what munition sent. 

To underprop this action ? is't not I, 

That undergo this charge ? "Who else but I, 

And such as to my claim are liable. 

Sweat in this business, and maintain this war ? 

Have I not heard these islanders shout out, 

Yive le roy ! as I have bank'd their towns ? 

Have I not here the best cards for the game, 

To win this easy match play'd for a crown ? 

And shall I now give o'er the yielded set ? 

No, on my soul, it never shall be said. 

Pand. You look but on the outside of this work. 

Lew. Outside, or inside, I will not return 

Till my attempt so much be glorified 
As to my ample hope was promised 
Before I drew this gallant head of war, 
And cuU'd these fiery spirits from the world. 
To outlook conquest, and to win renown 
Even in the jaws of danger and of death. 

The Legate then curses the other side, whereupon the fight 
takes place, and the French, as becomes them, under the effects 
of PandulpVs new anathema, get the worst of it; but King 
John is led from the field sick during the middle of the melee, 
and retires to Swinstead Abbey in the neighbom-hood. In the 
following scene his approaching death is thus described, and the , 
lines I have italicized are those which the Protestant biographers 
stoutly rely upon to show that Shakespeare could not have been 
a Roman Catholic : — 

HtJBEET. The Icing, I fear, is poisoned hy a monTc : 
I left him almost speechless, and broke out 
To acquaint you with this evil, that you might 
The better arm you to the sudden time, 
Thanif you had at leisure known of this. 

Bastaed. How did he take it ? "Who did taste to him ? 



Religion of Shakespeare, , 57 

HuBEET. A monTc, I tell you ; a resolved villain, 

Whose hoivels suddenly hurst out : the king 
Yet speaks, and peradventure may recover. 

The monk who did this deed had evidently prepared himself to 
carry out Pandulph^s curse of excommunication^ and also to 
revenge John^s sacrilegious plunder of the monasteries. In those 
days of the absence of newspapers, this monk doubtless had not 
been informed of the very recent pardon of John by Pandulph, 
and therefore, instead of being regarded as " a resolved villain/' 
as Hubert, King John^s minion, naturally terms him, he would 
be esteemed by the faithful, for this brave devotion of himself, as 
being worthy rather of " canonization " (which, indeed, was 
promised by Pandulph) and a high place '' among the glorious 
company of the apostles " than of harsh terms, or any form 
of condemnation whatsoever. That the monk had long been 
" resolved " in his purpose of poisoning the King and to that 
extent was " a resolved villain, is evident from the fact that it 
must have cost him much time and considerable court influence to 
become " taster '^ to his Majesty, as a preliminary to the glorious 
canonization which he expected, for carrying out the orders of the 
Legate, at the expense of his own life. 

As to Knight^s second exception to Shakespeare^s Catholicity, 
I deem it hardly worthy of an argument. The prophecy made 
in the play of " Henry VIII.,^' that under the reign of the infant 
Elizabeth 

" God shall be truly known," 

is the expression of Cranmer, a Protestant prelate, and it is put 
into his mouth by the author during the reign of Protestant 
James I., through whose graciousness he still got his living as one 
of " her Majesty's players.'' Besides, the expression as to the 
worship of God the Father is as correct, in a Christian sense, in 
the mouth of a Roman Catholic as in that of a Protestant. 
Moreover, the speech of Cranmer, containing the above line, is 
almost universally attributed to Ben Jonson, who wrote it in 
compliment to King James. 

This seems to meet the Protestant arguments based upon the 
text of " King John." We come next to the evidence ofiered 
on the same side from " King Henry VI.," Parts I. and II. 

Two of the principal characters in both these plays are 



58 Shakespeare, from an Americafi Point of View. 

Humphrey Duke of Gloster, brother of the deceased Henry V., 
and the Duke of Beaufort^ who is Bishop of Winchester, and 
subsequently Cardinal Beaufort. Gloster, who was brother to 
the deceased Henry V., is Lord Protector of the infant Henry VI., 
andj being beloved by the people, is popularly known throughout 
the country by the name of the Good Duke Humphrey. In fact, 
the original title of the latter of these plays was " The Second 
Part of King Henry the Sixth, with the Death of the Good 
Duke Humphrey .^^ The Bishop of Winchester, on the other 
hand, is shown by all the histories of the time to have been a 
lewd, unprincipled, treacherous, conspiring, and bloody-minded 
villain, as bad in every respect as lago, Angelo, or Edmund. 
The part which he performs is entirely political, and his principal 
aim is to supplant the Lord Protector, whom he finally succeeds 
in having basely murdered. These two characters come in con- 
flict at the very outset of the dramatic history of " Henry VI." 
The first scene of their contention takes place before the Tower, 
into which the Lord Protector, though entitled to arbitrary 
access to all public places in the realm, finds himself and his 
retainers refused admittance by the servants and followers of the 
Bishop of Winchester, who are in possession. While Gloster is 
clamouring at the gates, and threatening, by virtue of his 
supreme authority, to burst them open, the following scene 
occurs in Act I. Scene 3 : — 

Enter Winchestee, attended hy a train of Servants in tawny coats. 
Win. How now, ambitious Humplirey ? what means this ? 
Glo. Piel'd priest, dost thou command me to be shut out ? 
Win. I do, thou most usurping proditor, 

And not protector of the king or realm. 
Glo. Stand back, thou manifest conspirator ; 

Thou, that contriv'dst to murder our dead lord ; 

Thou, that giv'st bawds ^ indulgences to sin : 

I'll canvas thee in thy broad cardinal's hat. 

If thou proceed in this thy insolence. 

® I have changed this word, for the purpose of these pages, out of regard 
for modern ears. The curious reader may consult the text. The line, and 
the reproach which it conveys, will be better understood when it is known 
that "the public stews in Southwark were under the jurisdiction of the 
Bishop of Winchester. In the office-book of the court all fees were entered 
that were paid by the keepers of these brothels — the church reaping the 
advantages of these pests to society." 



Religion of Shakespeare. 59 

Win. Nay, stand thou back, I will not budge a foot : 

This be Damascus, be thou cursed Cain, 

To slay thy brother Abel, if thou wilt. 
Glo. I will not slay thee, but I'll drive thee back : 

Thy scarlet robes, as a child's bearing cloth 

I'll use, to carry thee out of this place. 
Win. Do what thou dar'st : I beard thee to thy face. 
GiiO. What ? am I dar'd, and bearded to my face ? — 

Draw, men, for all this privileged place ; 

Blue coats to tawny coats. Priest, beware your beard ; 

[Glostee and his men attach the Sishop. 

I mean to tug it, and to cuff you soundly : 

Under my feet I stamp thy cardinal's hat ; 

In spite of pope, or dignities of church, 

Here by the cheeks I'll drag thee up and down. 
Win. Gloster, thou'lt answer this before the pope. 

The two parties are here about falling upon one another when 
the Mayor of London enters with his officers, and commands the 
peace, whereupon Gloster, out of respect for the law, at once calls 
off his men, and says, — 

Glo. Cardinal,^ I'll be no breaker of the law : 

But we shall meet, and break our minds at large. 
Win. Gloster, we'll meet ; to thy dear cost be sure : 

Thy heart-blood I will have, for this day's work. 
Matoe. I'll call for clubs, if you will not away : 

This cardinal is more haughty than the devil. 
Glo. Mayor, farewell : thou dost but what thou may'st. 
Win. Abominable Gloster ! guard thy head ; 

Por I intend to have it, ere long. \_Exeunt. 

In a subsequent scene Gloster says to Winchester : — 

Thou art reverent 
Touching thy spiritual function, not thy life. 

Thus showing that he is neither a questioner of "Winchester's 
religion, nor a heretic himself. 

Again, after Winchester has been created cardinal, he chal- 
lenges Gloster to a duel, which is finally settled by King Henry. 
In Act III. Scene 1, Queen Margaret and Suffolk, her paramour, 
plot with York and Beaufort Gloster's assassination, and thus 
the Cardinal : — 

' The use of the word Cardinal in this place shows that Shakespeare was 
not always precise in his expressions. Beaufort at this time was only Bishop 
of Winchester. 



6o Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

But I would lay him dead, my lord of Suffolk, 
Ere you can take due orders for a priest : 
Say, you consent, and censure well the deed. 
And I'll provide his executioner. 

The assassination is performed in pursuance of this conspiracy, 
and the following- is the scene of the conscience-stricken mur- 
derer^s death-bed : — 

Cardinal Beaufort's Bedchamler. 

Enter King Heney, Salisbuey, Waewick, and others. The Caedinai 

in bed ; Attendants with him. 

K. Hen. How fares my lord ? speak, Beaufort, to thy sovereign. 

Cab. If thou be'st death, I'll give thee England's treasure, 
Enough to purchase such another island, 
So thou wilt let me live, and feel no pain. 

K. Hen. Ah, what a sign it is of evil life. 

When death's approach is seen so terrible ! 

Wae. Beaufort, it is thy sovereign speaks to thee. 

Cab. Bring me unto my trial when you will. 

Died he not in his bed ? where should he die ? 
Can I make men live, whe'r they will or no ? — 
! torture me no more, I will confess. — 
Alive again p then show me where he is : 
I'll give a thousand pound to look upon him. 
He hath no eyes, the dust hath blinded them. — 
Comb down his hair ; look ! look ! it stands upright. 
Like lime-twigs set to catch my winged soul ! — 
Give me some drink ; and bid the apothecary 
Bring the strong poison that I bought of him. 

K. Hen. thou eternal Mover of the heavens. 

Look with a gentle eye upon this wretch ! 
O, beat away the busy meddling fiend, 
That lays strong siege unto this wretch's soul. 
And from his bosom purge this black despair ! 

Wae. See how the pangs of death do make him grin. 

Sal. Disturb him not, let him pass peaceably. 

K. Hen. Peace to his soul, if God's good pleasure be ! 

Lord cardinal, if thou think'st on heaven's bliss. 
Hold up thy hand, make signal of thy hope. — 
He dies, and makes no sign ; God forgive him ! 

Wae. So bad a death argues a monstrous life. 

K. Hen. Forbear to judge, for we are sinneBS all. — 

Close up his eyes, and draw the curtains close ; 

And let us aU to meditation. \_JExeunt. 

At this point I desire to call attention to the king's use of the 



Religion of Shakespeare. 6i 

word "meditation/' wbieli is a form of Catliolic worship, or 
pious practice, prescribed by the Romish Church for certain 
hours. King Henrj, as a Catholic, had doubtless observed this 
devotion, and, of course, referred to it; but William Shake- 
speare could hardly have made this doctrinal reference to it 
unless he had been a Catholic himself. 

By the foregoing extracts from the text, it will be seen that 
the parties were all Catholics together; and the assumption that 
the author, because he makes one of them berate another, and 
reproach him with misrepresenting his clerical pretensions, is, 
therefore, not a Catholic, seems to me to be without much force. 
Against this theory we find Gloster distinctly recognizing 
Beaufort's faith, though he reprehends the sinfulness of the 
man ; while King Henry himself, the leading feature of whose 
character is devoted piety, consigns the accursed Cardinal to hell. 
Had Shakespeare been writing under the suspicion that the sin- 
cerity of his own faith might at some day be questioned for the 
freedom with which he makes Duke Humphrey curse the Car- 
dmal, he could not have provided a more complete justification of 
his unswerving Eomanism, or devised a more perfect excuse for 
his maledictions of the Cardinal, than is made by the pious king, 
when, looking in vain to see the dying wretch hold up his hand 
for mercy from his God, he sadly exclaims, — 

" He dies, and makes no sign." 

Henry, in this exclamation, means of course no sign of 
repentance, without which, according to Catholic doctrinej no 
sinner can be allowed to enter heaven. 



62 Shakespeare^ from an A^nerican Point of View. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Shakespeare's contempt for protestants. 

The determination of the English biographers of William 
Shakespeare to resist the theory that he was a Papist^ is actuated 
by entirely different motives from those which govern our present 
inquiry. Their object is to defend to the Protestant persuasion, 
the prestige of a writer who, in his influence over the minds of 
the English people, is next in authority to God, and who has 
devoted the highest eff'orts of his genius to the constant inculca- 
tion of the most submissive loyalty to the aristocratic classes 
and the Crown. 

The question of the religious faith of the author of the 
Shakespeare plays was of very trivial importance to the govern- 
ing classes of Great Britain at the time when Shakespeare 
wrote, and, indeed, for some time afterward. At the date of his 
career, the country had barelj'' emerged from universal Romanism ; 
and the old faith received its first wound under Henry VIII., 
who died only seventeen years before Shakespeare was born. 
The blow which Henry struck at the Church, moreover, was 
known to be one of politics rather than of faith. Besides, that 
faith, still suppressed during the short reign of Edward VI., was 
revived throughout the land by his daughter. Bloody Mary, in 
seven years after his decease, (1553), which pious princess 
enforced its re-establishment, after the earnest manner of her 
estimable father, by a persuasive multiplicity of burnings and 
boilings in oil of all stubborn Nonconformists. 

Protestantism was again restored by Elizabeth and James, 
whose reigns covered Shakespeare's period. But no influence 
which he or any writer for the stage then possessed, was of the 
least importance to the Government. Churchmen at that time 
were either politicians or wore coats of mail, and conformity was 
secured for the established faith by sheriffs' officers or files of 



Shakespeare s Contempt for Protestants. 6-}^ 

troops. These were tendencies which even the Muse of Shake- 
speare was bound to respect^ and, instead of looking through his 
plays for distinct evidences of adherence to a doctrine which 
would not only have stripped him of his friends at court, but lost 
him the favour of both the last-named sovereigns, the wonder 
should rather be that, under such great temptations to be politic, 
he never was induced to allude to a Protestant without contempt. 
Indeed, the only Lutheran he ever permitted to escape from the 
point of his pen without a stab was Cranmer, who baptized 
Queen Elizabeth. The evidences of this contempt by Shake- 
speare for the Protestant persuasion may be found in his por- 
traiture of Sir Hugh Evans, the Welsh parson, in " The Merry 
Wives of Windsor,^-* described as a vain, profane, pragmatic, 
obscene creature, who frequents taverns, engages in a duel, and 
enters readily into a plot to pervert a marriage -^ also of Nathaniel 
and of Holofernes," respectively a country curate and a Protestant 
pedagogue, in " Lovers Labour's Lost,^-* and likewise of Sir Oliver 
Martext^ in "As You Like It."" All of these three are mere 

1 See " The Merry Wives of Windsor," Act III. Scene 1. 

2 " Love's Labours Lost," Act IV. Scene 2 :— 

Scene — SiE Nathaniel, the Cueats, and Holofeenes. 

Nath. Sir, I praise the Lord for you ; and so may my parishioners ; for 
their sons are well tutor'd by you, and their daughters profit very greatly 
under you : you are a good member of the commonwealth. 

HoL. Mehercle, if their sons be ingenious, they shall want no instruction : 
if their daughters be capable, I will put it to them : but, vir sapit, qui pauca 
loquitur : a soul feminine saluteth us. 

3 « As You Like it," Act III. Scene 2 :— 

Scene — Touchstone, Audeey, and Jaqttes. 
Touch. But be it as it may be, I will marry thee, and to that end, I have 
been with Sir Oliver Martext, the vicar of the next village ; who hath pro- 
mised to meet me in this place of the forest, and to couple us. 

Enter Sie Oiivee Maetext. 
Here comes Sir Oliver :— Sir Oliver Martext, you are well met. Will you 
despatch us here under this tree, or shall we go with you to your chapel .? 

"Sie Oliv. Is there none here to give the woman .P 

Touch. I -nill not take her on the gift of any man. 

Jaq. And will you, being a man of your breeding, be married under a 
bush, like a beggar.? Get you to church, and have a good priest that can 
tell you what marriage is : this fellow tvill hut Join you together as they 



64 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

buffoons, while the " Twelfth Night " is made to contribute its 
quota of derisive presentation of Protestant character by an 
illusory drunken parson called Sir Topas;'' though the Roman 

join toainscot : then one of you will prove a sBrunk pannel, and, like green 
timber, warp, warp. 

Touch. I am not in tlie mind, but I were better to be married of him 
than of another ; for he is not like to marry me well ; and not being well 
married, it will be a good excuse for me hereafter to leave my wife. \_Aside. 
Jaq. Go thou with me, and let me counsel thee. 
Touch. Come, sweet Audrey, 

We must be married, or we must live in bawdry. 
Farewell, good master Oliver ! 

{^Exeunt Jaques, Touchstone, and Audeey. 

■ SiE Oliv. 'Tis no matter ; ne'er a fantastical knave of them all shall flout 
me out of my calling. \_Exit. 

* " Twelfth Night," Act II. Scene 3 :— 

Scene — SiE Toby Belch, Maeia, and SiE Andeew. 

SiE To. Possess us, possess us ; tell us something of him. 

Mae. MaiTy, sir, sometimes he is a kind of Puritan. 

SiE And. if I thought that, I'd beat him like a dog. 

SiE To. What, for being a Puritan ? Thy exquisite reason, dear knight ? 

SiE And. I have no exquisite reason for't, but I have reason good enough. 

Mae. The devil a Puritan that he is, or anything constantly but a time- 
pleaser ; an affection'd ass. 

Act IV. Scene 2. — SiE Toby Belch, Maeia, and Clown as Sie Topas, 

the Parson. 

Sie Toby. Jove bless thee, master parson. 

Clown {to Sir Tohy). Bonos dies. Sir Toby ; for, as the old hermit of 
Prague, that never saw pen and ink, very wittily said to a niece of King 
Gorboduc, That, that is, is; so I, being master parson, am master parson. 
For what is that, but that ? and is, but is ? 

Sie To. To him. Sir Topas. 

iMocK Sie T. What, boa, I say — peace in this prison. 

Sie To. The knave counterfeits well : a good knave. 

Mal. {in an inner chamber). Who calls there? 

Clown. Sir Topas, the curate, who comes to visit Malvolio, the lunatic. 

Mal. Sir Topas, Sir Topas, good Sir Topas, go to my lady. 

Clown. Out, hyperbolical fiend! how vexest thou this man? Talkest 
thou nothing but of ladies ? 

SiE To. Well said, master parson. 

Mal. Sir Topas, never was man thus wronged ; good Sir Topas, do not 
think I am mad ; they have laid me here in hideous darkness. 

Clown. Fye, thou dishonest Sathan ! I call thee by the most modest 



Political Utilization of Shakespeare, 65 

CatBolic priest of the same play is most respectfully alluded to. 
In this reverent tone Shakespeare treats all his Romish clergy- 
men; so if he were really a Protestant, as the English bio- 
graphers stubbornly insist, it is most extraordinary that, with 
a Protestant court to write to, and a Protestant people to cater 
for, his mind was never tempted by the high motive of religion 
into a single invocation of the faith that filled his soul ! 

It was not foreseen in Shakespeare's time that his intellectual 
supremacy over all the intellects of his own nation would acquire 
for him an amount of moral power which a sagacious govern- 
ment, whether in its legal, religious, or its merely political 
departments, could not afford to leave unutilized. In degree, 
as coats of mail were laid aside, the consent of the governed 
became an increasing element in the control of the State; and 
then it was found that scholarship and genius were worthy of 
being officially patted on the back, as, for instance, through the 
appointment of poets-laureate ; or of writers cleverly subsidized in 
cozy government nooks, with comfortable sinecures. Of all the 
representatives of the new forces of civilization, Shakespeare, 
since his hour, has uninterruptedly remained the chief. His 
progress for a time was tardy, but like the thin column of 
vapour which slowly curled from the magician's lamp, his genius 
kept rising and spreading itself before the wondering English 
people, until it covered the whole heaven of their comprehension, 

terms ; for I am one of those gentle ones tliat will use the devil himself with 
courtesy. Say'st thou that house is dark ? 
Mai. As hell, Sir Topas. 

The Same. — Scene 3. 
Sebastian, Olivia, and a 'Priest. 
Olit. Blame not this haste of mine : If you mean well, 
Now go with me, and toith this holy man. 
Into the chantry hy : there, before him, 
And underneath that consecrated roof. 
Plight me the full assurance of your faith ; 
That my most jealous and too doubtful soul 
May live at peace : he shall conceal it, 
Whiles you are willing it shall come to note ; 
What time we will our celebration keep 
According to my birth. — What do you say .P 
See. Til follow this good man, and go with you ; 
And, having sworn truth, ever will be true. 
Then lead the way, good father ; — And heavens so shine, 
That they may fairly note this act of mine ! \_Ej[:eunt. 



66 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View, 

and they bowed amazedly before it, utterly enraptured by its 
glory. Nay, such is the service which, with all his faults, our 
poet has rendered to mankind, it is not too much to say, 
that were the two separate questions put, to every man of the 
English-speaking" race who can read and write, as to what was 
the g-reatest benefaction God ever made to man? and to whom 
each of them was indebted for the greatest amount of intellectual 
pleasure he had enjoyed on earth ? the unstudied and immediate 
answer would be Shakespeare ! To the question of who next ? the 
reply of the present generation most likely would be, Dickens — 
true to his class, true to morality, and the Apostle of the Poor ! 

It is difficult for Americans who have never been in England 
to conceive to what an extent religion enters into the machinery 
of the British government. In fact, the Episcopal Church of 
England has not only one-third of the actual government in the 
hands of its representatives in the House of Lords, but it has 
gradually organized itself into a regular ^^ industry,'^ which 
covers the land with swarms of its dependents, represents accu- 
mulated salaries and annual incomes to the extent of millions 
upon millions of money, and is, in every respect, as much of an 
organized business, in the sense of an industry, as the industries 
of making boots and shoes, of the raising of beeves or of the growing 
of corn. So potent is this Industry of Religion in the machinery 
of the British realm, that it claims one day out of every seven, 
or nearly one-seventh part of the entire year, as a concession to its 
importance ; and this, too, to the subordination of every interest 
else. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that this great 
Episcopal power will permit no traffic but its own, on what it 
terms the Lord's Day ; that it will suffer no doors to be opened 
in English cities for the transaction of business of any sort, 
during the hours of service, but church doors, and tolerate no 
sounds at that time but the sound of church bells. In every 
other portion of the civilized world (except in the United States, 
which still retains its tendency for English opinion), and under 
every form of religion but that of the English Episcopal Church, 
Sunday is free, and The People enjoy their usual pastimes, even 
to the extent of going to the races or to the theatres, accompanied 
often, as I have seen in Rome, France, Italy, Spain, and in other 
Catholic countries of North and South America, by their religious 
guides and teachers. The strange feature of this annihilation of 



Religion of Shakespeare. 6j 

the liberty of tlie Lord's Day is tlie servile following which 
the English political Sunday has in the United States ; and that, 
too, under a National Constitution which prohibits all connexion 
between Church and State, and likewise under State Con- 
stitutions every one of which declares that "no laws shall be 
made affecting religious belief/^ 

This may seem to be a divergence from the purposes of this 
chapter. But its aim is to exhibit the immense interest which 
the English Government, and particularly that portion of it con- 
fided to the English Church (covering as it does the great 
domain of English scholarship), has, in concentrating every par- 
ticle of influence which can contribute toward popular control, 
within their own hands, for the security of their privileges and 
the quiet management of the State. This is the reason why 
the English churchmen and nobility cannot afford to relin- 
quish the tremendous advantages of Shakespeare's inculcations of 
loyal subserviency upon millions of his worshippers, and why the 
dignitaries of the Established Church cannot permit that in- 
fluence to be impaired, by admitting for a moment, that he was 
a Eoman Catholic. This is the key to the denial by the 
English commentators, that he was an' adherent of the latter 
doctrine, while my whole purpose, in tracing the evidences of 
Shakespeare's attachment to the Catholic faith, is to show that 
the Shakespeare plays, which so teem with Romish reverence, 
and which so abound with evidences of the writer's contempt for 
Protestantism, could not have been the production of the Puritan 
Lord Bacon. Indeed, to settle this question more certainly, it is 
only necessary to contrast the decisive illustrations which I have 
attached to this chapter, in the way of Shakespearian extracts, 
with the undisputed facts that Bacon wrote metrical versions of 
the Psalms of David, and dedicated them to his Protestant 
friend, George Herbert, as " the best judge of divinity and poesy 
met ;" ' and that he also, while a member of Parliament for 
Liverpool, wrote a paper on " Church Controversies," to assist a 
discourse of Secretary Walsingham on the conduct of the Queen's 
government towards Papists and Dissenters.^ 

Every influence, however, has its period, and Shakespeare's 
prestige, which was nothing to Government in the arbitrary age 

® Holmes on " The Authorship of Shakespeare," p. 185. 
^ Holmes, p. 81 



68 S fiakesp ear e, from an American Point of View. 

in which he livecl, became colossal as his genius developed itself 
to the expanding" intelligence and growing literary tastes of his 
countrymen. Though now threatened with a decline from its 
political zenith, his poetic supremacy will not be impaired, even 
if its political effectiveness be reduced to a quantity of ordinary 
power. Indeed, should it be proven he was a Catholic, it is not 
impossible that the nobility of England, which for two hundred 
years and more have been claiming for him a divine preeminence 
over the poets of all other countries^ or that the English Church, 
which has been backing these extreme pretensions, may ere 
long abandon him to the defences of his own genius, and turn 
to other agencies for the protection of their political ascendancy. 
It is hardly necessary that I should add anything more, at this 
stage of my inquiry, as to the respective religious beliefs of Lord 
Bacon and of William Shakespeare ; but before taking leave of 
Henry VIII., which is an ample field of reference upon this sub- 
ject, I will direct attention to the fact that the poet makes 
Queen Catharine, who is his heau ideal of Catholic purity and 
elevation, declare that "All hoods make not monks/^ and 
further on, when she addresses the Cardinals Wolsey and Campeius, 
he allows her to evince the comprehension that politics soon drives 
religion from the soul, by the sarcasm : " If ye be anything but 
churchmen^s habits.^^ ^ I make this reference because it seems 
to me to take the steel out of Knight^s point on the passage in 
" King John," commencing with 

" The king, I fear, is poisoned by a monk — 



A monk, I tell you ; a resolved villain." 
I am reminded by a note from a Protestant friend (and, it 
may be as well to state here that I am of the same persuasion), 
that I shall probably find some difficulty in accounting for 

"^ See " Henry VIII." Act III. Scene 1. Also tke following remarks by 
Dr. Samuel Johnson on the same : — " The play of ' Henry VIII.,' " says 
Johnson, " is one of those which still keeps possession of the stage by the 
splendour of its pageantry. The coronation scene, about forty years ago, 
drew the people together in multitudes for the great part of the winter. Yet 
pomp is not the only merit of this play. The meek sorrows and virtuous 
distress of Katharine have furnished some scenes which may be justly num- 
bered among the greatest efforts of tragedy. But the genius of Shakespeare 
comes in and goes out with Katharine. Every other part may be easily con- 
ceived and easily written." 



Religion of Shakespeare. 69 

Shakespeare's great familiarity with the Bible^ inasmuch as 
Catholics were not allowed to read the sacred volume ; but I find 
no difficulty in this fact at all. John Shakespeare^ the poet's 
father^ had been High Bailiff and first Alderman of Stratford, 
and as such had taken the oath of conformity; so the absence 
of a Protestant Bible from his house might have led to the 
loss of his ofiice^ and possibly to the arrest of his family. The 
Bible^ no doubt, was always lying conspiciously '^ around ■" in the 
Stratford homestead, and the youthful Shakespeare, with his 
rage for reading, must have eagerly devoured its splendid 
imagery — at any rate, whenever he had nothing else at hand. 
But he was equally, nay, much better informed upon Catholic 
rites and peculiarities of belief than of Protestantisms, as has been 
shown by his frequent allusions to their terms and tenets, and 
especially to purgatory/ — in proof of which I refer to the following 
exquisite lines in Eichard III. : — 
Queen Elizabeth. 

Ah, my poor princes ! Ah, my tender babes ! 

My unblown flowers, new-appearing sweets ! 

If yet your gentle souls fly in the air. 

And he not fix' d in doom ferpetual. 

Hover about me with your airy wings. 

And hear your mother's lamentations . 

<' Kichard III.," Act IV. Scene 4 

And again by Buckingham in his invocation, on the way to 
execution, to the souls of those whom Richard (by his own help) 
had murdered : — 

All that have miscarried 
By underhand, corrupted foul injustice ! 
If that your moody discontented souls 
Do through the clouds behold this present hour. 
Even for revenge, mock my destruction ! 

The most remarkable evidence, to my mind, that Shakespeare 
could not have been a Protestant, is the restraint which he im- 
posed upon himself during Elizabeth's reign, against writing 
even a line reflecting upon the manifold atrocities of Bloody 
Mary, though she at one time even meditated sending his 
patroness, Elizabeth, to the block. Of the same character are 
his slavish praises to that unparalleled miscreant, Henry VIIL, 
who stifled Smithfield with the smoke of human sacrifices, for 
opinion's sake. Nevertheless, Shakespeare has falsely handed 
6 



70 Shakespeare^ from an American Point of View, 

down this monster to tlie English people^ g-ilded by the halo of his 
genius ; nay, has consigned him to their forgiveness, and even to 
their affections, as BluflP King Hal. There was some reason, 
perhaps, why the poet should pass him gently by, as the father 
of Elizabeth (though the play of " Henry VIII." was not written 
until long after her decease), but I have no doubt that Shake- 
speare's main reason was because Henry, notwithstanding his per- 
secutions of the Church, died a good Catholic. The same reason 
may be held to account for the poet's extreme devotion to Queen 
Catharine, who was conspicious for nothing, except for the pro- 
found dejjth of her Catholic bigotry; which, instead of having 
been softened by English influences, seems to have deepened 
from the hour of her leaving Spain. 

Before closing this chapter I may add that I find another 
personal proof of Shakespeare's Romanism in the bitter hatred 
which he repeatedly exhibits to the Jews. This prejudice does 
not exist largely among Protestants ; at any rate, not among the 
Protestants of the United States. On the contrary, the Jews 
mingle here with Christians without any social disadvantage; 
and, for my own part, I have never heard of any historical, ethno- 
logical, or moral reason why they should suffer the least discount 
in any equitable estimation. They certainly are the purest race 
known to the world ; and this purity could not have been pre- 
served without great traits of character and great sacrifices. 
They are notoriously brave, for the proofs of their courage are 
stamped upon every age, from the battle-field to the prize-ring. 
Their women are proverbially virtuous and beautiful ; an intense 
interior pride keeps them from ever billeting their poor upon the 
public charities; and the wonder is that, under the prejudice 
which the society of all Christian countries has unremittingly 
exercised against them, they remain such useful, inofiensive, law- 
abiding citizens. The world is not at all indebted to William 
Shakespeare for what he has done to contribute toward this 
narrow, grovelling, and contemptible reflection upon the Jews; 
and, least of all, should he be respected for it in America. Less, 
than at any time, to-day. Prejudice is the very meanest form of 
slavery ; for it is the slavery of the mind. One black, shrivelling 
blot, slavery, has recently been exuded from the national con- 
science. Surely there can be no excuse for allowing even a shadow 
of this other to remain. 



L egal A cqtdrements of Shakespeare. 7 1 



CHAPTER IX. 

LEGAL ACqUIEEMENTS OF SHAKESPEARE. 

Having now disposed, in a general way, of the inquiry as to tlie 
respective religious beliefs of Sir Francis Bacon and of William 
Shakespeare, we are now prepared to pass on to the reading of the 
plays for further evidence in support of the Roman Catholic 
theory. And also for evidence to test the truth of the declarations 
in our opening chapter, that the author of the Shakespeare plays 
was never betrayed into one generous aspiration in favour of 
popular liberty, and never alluded to the labouring classes without 
detestation or contempt. Further, that he could not have been 
a statesman or a lawyer ; both of which, beyond all doubt. Lord 
Bacon was. In dealing with this latter point I am aware that 
I shall have to undertake the hazard of disagreeing, to some 
extent, with so powerful an authority as Lord Chief Justice 
Campbell of England, and also with distinguished lawyers in this 
country ; while, in denying to Shakespeare a single political 
emotion in favour of liberty for the masses, I am also conscious 
of the apparent contradiction which presents itself to this assump- 
tion, in the one solitary play of '' Julius Csesar,^^ through the 
character of Brutus. Upon this latter point, however, I shall 
only stop at this- stage of the inquiry to say that Brutus, though 
a patriot, in the sense of an abounding love of country, was at 
same time an intense aristocrat, who struck Caesar purely in 
defence of an oligarchical form of government and the privileges 
of his own patrician class, and whose conspiracy never contem- 
plated for a moment the liberation of the People from their fixed 
condition of bondsmen and of slaves. His invocations to Liberty, 
therefore, were merely in the interest of the associated nobles, as 
contrasted with the invidious despotism of a king, and did not 
comprehend reducing the degrading distance between the Patri- 



72 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

cians, who were the masters of the State, and the Plebeians, who 
were the dirt under their feet. This was the form of the Roman 
Republic in the defence of which Brutus, Cassius, '' and the rest/' 
struck down the ambitious Csesar. They were patriots in their 
own estimation, of course, but they were patriots in the same 
sense as the Earls of Warwick and of Salisbury were patriots ; and 
their love of country was of precisely the same brand as that of 
King John and of Henry V. But of this more in the proper 
place. 

The assumption that the author of the Shakespeare plays must 
have been a lawyer, from the evidences of legal erudition which 
are strewed throughout his text, has been a very favourite one with 
the majority of the commentators and biographers of William 
Shakespeare ; and when the Baconian theory was broached a few 
years ago, these evidences were eagerly seized upon by the persons 
who claimed the credit of those wonderful productions for the 
great Lord Chancellor. At the outset of this discussion of Shake- 
speare's legal lore, Bacon was not thought of in connexion with 
the puzzle ; and the commentators, therefore, were forced, pretty 
generally, to come to the conclusion that during the six or seven 
years between Shakespeare's leaving school and going up to Lon- 
don he had either been articled to an attorney or been a clerk and 
scrivener in some notary's office. Some critics, whose brows were 
more rainbowed than the rest, suggested that any extent of 
scholastic accomplishment might fairly be attributed to the vivid, 
lambent, quick-breeding conception of such a miracle of genius 
as was the poet of our race ; but this exceptional theory made 
but little headway with more sober reasoners, mainly for 
the want of precedents that any man was ever known to have 
learned his letters, or attained to the art of making boots or 
watches by mere intuition. The fact is, that the true difficulty 
with this portion of the inquiry has been, that too much 
erudition and legal comprehension has been attributed to Shake- 
speare for what his law phrases indicate ; or, in plainer words, 
they have been paraded at a great deal more than they are 
really worth. 

Let me say here for myself, however, that without attributing 
too much to the exceptional superiority of Shakespeare's quickness 
of conception and intellectual grasp, all the knowledge which he 
shows of legal verbiage and of certain general principles of law. 



Legal A cgnirements of Shakespeare. 7 3 

so far as he refers to them in his plays, might, it seems to me, 
have been obtained — first, by reading certain elementary works 
of law falling in his way ; next, by attendance at the courts of 
record, held twice a month at Stratford, and courts-leet and 
view of frankpledge, held in the same town twice a year. Next, 
through his own subsequent experience as an owner of real estate ; 
which latter position necessarily familiarized him with all the 
forms of '' purchase,^^ of leases, of mortgages, and sale. Besides, 
he might reasonably be credited with much additional law know- 
ledge gained by legal borrowing and lending, and through law- 
suits which we know he instituted for the recovery of del^t. I 
think it would be difficult for Lord Campbell to show that the* 
law phrases which Shakespeare uses go beyond the wide scope of 
this opportunity of acquisition to a bright-minded man ; while, 
if we are to take into consideration the subsequent advantages 
our poet derived in London, from familiar discussion of the great 
law cases of the day at " The Maiden ^^ ' and other popular taverns 
he frequented near the Inns of Court, where such men as Ben 
Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, Seldon, Cotton, Carew, Donne, 
Martin, Sir Walter Raleigh, and sometimes even Bacon himself, 
found conversational relaxation in absence of newspapers, we 
should have to come to the conclusion that Shakespeare must 
have been a very dull man if he had not acquired at least as much 
legal knowledge as his dramas show.^ 

1 Beaumont, in a friendly letter to Ben Jonson from the country, says,— 

" What things have we seen 
Done at the Mei'maid ! heard words that have been 
So nimble, and so full of subtle flame, 
As if that every one from whom they came 
Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest." 

- Lord Campbell says, "At Stratford there was, by royal charter, a 
court of record, with jurisdiction over all personal action to the amount 
of 30Z., equal, at the latter end of the reign of Elizabeth, to more than 100^. 
in the reign of Victoria. This court, the records of which are extant, was 
regulated by the course of practice and pleading which prevailed in the 
superior courts of law at Westminster, and employed the same barbarous 
dialect, composed of Latin, English, and Norman French. It sat every fort- 
night, and there belonged to it, besides the town clerk, six attorneys, some of 
whom must have practised in the Queen's Bench in Chancery, and have had 
extensive business in conveyancing. An attorney, steward of the Earl of 
Warwick, lord of the manor of Stratford, twice a year held a court-leet and 



74 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

Chalmers was the first to present the theory that Shakespeare 
must, for a considerable portion of his unrecorded youthful life, 
have been an attorney's clerk at Stratford. Malone and others 
adopted this view from the very necessity of accounting for the 
oft-recurring law phrases in the Shakespeare text ; while Lord 
Chief Justice Campbell has been carried to such an extent of 
enthusiasm by these professional terms as to attribute to Shake- 
speare quite an extensive knowledge of the law. His expression 
is : " Great as is the knowledge of the law which Shakespeare's 
writings display, and familiar as he appears to have been with 
all its forms and proceedings, the whole of this would easily be 
accounted for, if for some years he had occupied a desk in the 
office of a country attorney in good business j attending sessions 
and assizes, keeping leet days and law days, and, perhaps, being 
sent up to the metropolis in term time to conduct suits before 
the Lord Chancellor."^ 

• My objection to this is, with all due deference to so great a 
lawyer as a Lord Chief Justice, that the author of the Shake- 
speare plays did not possess any great knowledge of the law ; or, 
if he did, his dramatic writings do not show it. He exhibits, 
without doubt, a familiarity in law expressions, and applies 
them with a precision and a happiness of application in all cases 
which apparently carries the idea that he may have served in 
an attorney's office; but not one of them, nor do all of them 
together, mark anything higher than mere general principles 
and forms of practice, or such surface clack and knowledge as 
were within the mental reach of any clever scrivener or convey- 
ancer's clerk. On the contrary, whenever Shakespeare steps 
beyond the surface comprehension of the solicitor's phraseology, 
and attempts to deal with the spirit and philosophy of law, 
he makes a lamentable failure. " The Merchant of Venice," 
"Comedy of Errors," "Winter's Tale," and "Measure for 
Measure," contain conspicuous proofs of this deficiency, while 
the statesmanship of the Duke in the "Two Gentlemen of 
Verona," who, in his joy at recovering his daughter from a 

view of frank-pledge there, to wliicli a juiy was summoned, and at wticli 
constables were appointed and various presentments were made." — Campbell, 
p. 22. 

' " Shakespeare's Legal Attainments," by Lord John Campbell. Apple- 
ton's edition, 1869, p. 24. 



L egal A cquirements of Shakespeare. 7 5 

g-an^ of cut-throats in a forest, endeavours to reform them by 
appointing them to high posts under Government, is a sort of 
policy which Lord Bacon was never accused of, while he was a 
member of the Privy Council. 

Lord Campbeirs essay on " The Legal Acquirements of Shake- 
speare^' was drawn forth by an inquiry addressed to his Lordship 
on that subject, by Mr. Payne Collier (one of the most learned 
and thorough of the Shakespearian commentators), whether his 
Lordship was of the opinion that Shakespeare '' was a clerk in 
an attorney's ofSce in Stratford, before he joined the players in 
London ■"'? This led to an answer by his Lordship, under date 
of September 15, 1858, which shows a discovery of legal phrases 
and allusions in twenty-three of the thirty-seven Shakespeare 
plays ; and it is this amount of evidence which (though it does 
not bring the learned replicant to an absolute conclusion) elicits 
from him the expression which I have already given. His 
Lordship sets out in his response to Mr. Collier with — " I am 
obliged to say that, to the question you propound, no positive 
answer can very safely be given ;•'•' but he adds that, " were an 
issue tried before me, as Chief Justice, at the Warwick Assizes, 
whether William Shakespeare was ever clerk in an attorney's 
office, I should hold that there is evidence to go to the jury in 
support of the affirmative.'" 

His Lordship, however, does not hesitate to declare, further 
on, that there is one piece of direct evidence, if not two, that 
Shakespeare had been so employed in Stratford; and he is 
brought to this conclusion by libels which Greene and Nash, 
two jealous play -writing contemporaries, had made upon our 
poet in the preface to a work of Greene's, edited by Nash, and 
published in 1589. This preface, which I have already briefly 
noticed in Chapter IV., characterizes Shakespeare, though his 
name is not precisely mentioned, as '^ one of a sort of shifting 
companions that run through every art and thrive by none, to 
leave the trade of noverint whereto they were born . . . . , and 
who busy themselves with whole Hamlets of tragical speeches, 
&c." The term noverint is recognized by Lord Campbell as 
indicating the business of an attorney, in Shakespeare's time. 
Moreover, he believes that the phrase of " whole Hamlets" is a 
distinct allusion to the great play of our poet, and that the 
epithet of Shake-scene, applied to him by Greene in a subsequent 



76 Shakespeare^ from an American Point of View. 

libelj published in 1593^ was an undoubted mimiciy of Shake- 
speare's name. 

In view of this direct evidence, supported by the text, and by 
the general circumstances of the case. Lord Campbell closes his 
reply to Mr. Collier by saying, '^ Therefore, my dear Mr. Payne 
Collier, in support of your opinion that Shakespeare had been 
bred to the profession of the law in an attorney's ofl&ce, I think 
you will he justified in saying that the fact was asserted publicly 
in Shakespeare's lifetime by two contemporaries of Shakespeare, 
who were engaged in the same pursuits with himself, who must 
have known him well, and who were , probably acquainted with 
the whole of his career. I must likewise admit that this 
assertion is strongly corroborated by internal evidence to be 
found in Shakespeare's writings, I have once more perused the 
whole of his dramas, that I might more satisfactorily answer 
your question, and render you some assistance in finally coming 
to a right conclusion.'' 

Lord Campbell then goes on to produce his illustrations from 
the plays and sonnets attributed to Shakespeare, and I cannot 
help remarking, that it would be well for his Lordship's admirers 
if he had exhibited as much good sense and judgment in his 
presentment of these extracts as he did in his decision of 
Mr. Collier's general question. Two or three examples will give 
an idea of his Lordship's mode of reasoning, and of the singular 
earnestness which, tarantula-like, seems to have bitten all the 
commentators with a sort of mad desire to prove Shakespeare to 
have been a miracle, in every specialty ; and this, too often, 
without either rhyme or reason. 

His Lordship's first illustration of the depth of Shakespeare's 
legal lore is from the " Merry Wives of Windsor," and is as 
follows : — 

Falstaff. Of what quality was your love, then ? 

Ford. Like a fair house built upon another man's ground ; so that I have 
lost my edifice by mistaking the flace where I erected it. 

Probably not a single well-informed person in England or 
America, of either sex, does not know as much law as the above 
indicates — nay, does not even know that a nail driven by a tenant 
into the wall must remain with the realty — yet our learned Chief 
Justice thus discourses on it : — 



Legal Acqtdremeuts of Shakespeare. 7 7 

" Now this shows in Shakespeare a knowledge of the law of 
real property not generally possessed. The unlearned would 
suppose that if, by mistake, a man builds a fine house on the 
land of another, when he discovers his error he will be permitted 
to remove all the materials of the structure, and particularly the 
marble pillars and carved chimney-pieces with which he has 
adorned it : but Shakespeare knew better. He was aware that, 
being fixed to the freehold, the absolute property ' in them 
belonged to the owner of the soil/'' 

Again, says his Lordship, he remarks as to " Measure for 
Measure :" — 

" In Act I. Scene 2, the old lady who had kept a lodg'mg- 
liouse of a disreputable character in the suburbs of Vienna, being 
thrown into despair by the proclamation that all such houses in 
the suburbs must be plucked down, the Clown thus comforts 
her : — 

Clown. Come ; fear not you ; good counsellors lacTc no clients. 

" This comparison," says Lord Campbell, " is not very flattering 
to the bar, but it seems to show a familiarity with both pro- 
fessions alluded to.''' 

My observation upon this would be, that the Clown could not 
have made use of a more trite and ordinary proverb, in application 
to the subject, even if he had been a more profound person than 
a clown. 

But let us, at the present, go with his Lordship one step 
further. From " Macbeth" he quotes the lines : — 

" But yet I'll make assurance douUy sure, 
And take a hond of fate'' 

And this to prove Shakespeare to have been a lawyer! 
Further on his Lordship takes the following couplet from 
" Venus and. Adonis " to establish the same thing : — 

" But wlien tlie heart's attorney once is mute, 
The client breaks as desperate in the suit'' 

If this is fair evidence, and fair reasoning upon that evidence, 
to show Shakespeare to have been a lawyer, then, certainly, 
Hamlet's direction to the' players — 

" To hold as 'twere the mirror up to nature," 

would prove, beyond all doubt, that Shakespeare must have been 



78 Shakespeare^ from an American Point of View. 

a looking-glass maker^ or at least a dealer in that trade ; or that 
these two lines of Faulconbridge, in " King John/'' which criticize 
the form of attack proposed by the French and Austrian divisions 
upon Angiers^ — 

" prudent discipline ! from north to south, 
Austria and Erance shoot in each other's mouth," 

would prove Shakespeare to have been a soldier. 



part M. 
THE TESTIMONY OE THE PLAYS. 



" Tlie Tempest:' 8i 



CHAPTEE X. 

"the tempest," 

We have now arrived at the most important branch of our in- 
quiry ; namely^ at that by means of which Shakespeare may him- 
self be " interviewed ■'' through the testimony of his test. For 
this purpose I shall have to make liberal extracts from the plays, . 
as on the faith of my opening declarations I shall not feel 
at liberty to omit any expression which may seem to bear upon 
the argument, whether it be for one side or the others so that 
the reader may, without regard to my opinion, give judgment 
for himself. Indeed, if anything deemed pertinent shall chance 
to be left out, it will be because I have overlooked it ; and I will 
here avail myself of the opportunity to apologize for the extent 
of the extracts which I have already made from the old bio- 
graphers as to Shakespeare's personal history. Doubtless, these 
will be very trite and tiresome to scholars, to whom they are 
famihar, but I shall be excused when it is recollected that these 
extracts seemed necessary to substantiate my statements, while, 
for the convenience of the reader, it is perhaps better they should 
be in this book, ready to his hand, than be sought after in the 
public libraries. 

For convenience of exammation, I shall take the dramas in the 
order in which they were first published in the original foHo of 
1623. This publication puts "The Tempesf first; but in- 
stead of being one of Shakespeare's earliest plays, it was really 
one of his latest, for it was not produced, according to INIalone, 
tin 1613, only four years previous to our poet's death. 

There is not much in " The Tempest" bearing upon the points 
that I have ofiered, though it will serve to strengthen my view 
concerning the aristocratic class of personages chosen invariably 
by Shakespeare for his favourite characters, and the wide and con- 



82 Shakespeare^ from an American Point of View. 

temptuous distance he always places off between these favourites 
of his muse and the " common " people. With this view, I will 
give the dramatis personce, along with the first scene, in which 
most of the characters are introduced : — 

Alonzo, King of Naples. 

Sebastian, his brother. 

Peospeeo, the rightful DuJce of Milan. 

Antonio, his hrother, the usurping DuJce of Milan. 

Peedinand, son to the King of Naples. 

GoNZALO, an honest old counsellor of Naples. 

Adeian, Peancisca, lords. 

Caliban, a savage and deformed slave. 

Teinculo, a jester. 

Stephano, a drunTcen butler. 

Master of a ship, Boatsioain, and Mariners. 

MiEANDA, daughter to Frospero. 

Aeibl, an airy spirit. 

Act I. Scene 1. 

On a Ship at Sea — A Storm, with Thunder and Lightning. 
Enter a Shipmaster and a Boatswain. 

Mast. Boatswain — 

Boats. Here, master ; what cheer ? 

Mast. Good ; speak to the mariners ; fall to't yarely, or we run ourselves 
aground ; bestir, bestir. [_Kxit. 

JEnter Mariners. 

Boats. Heigh, my hearts ; cheerly, cheerly, my hearts ; yare, yare ; take 
in the topsail; tend to the master's whistle. Blow till thou burst thy 
Avind, if room enough ! 
Enter Alonzo, Sebastian, Antonio, Feedinand, Gonzalo, and others. 

Alon. Good boatswain, have care. Where's the master ? Play the men. 

Boats. I pray, now, keep below. 

Ant. Where is the master, boatswain ? 

Boats. Do you not hear him ? You mar our labour. Keep your cabins ; 
you do assist the storm. 

GoN. Nay, good, be patient. 

Boats. When the sea is. Hence ! what care these roarers for the name of 
king ! To cabin ; silence ; trouble us not. 

GoN. Good ; yet remember whom thou hast aboard. 

Boats. None that I more love than myself. You are a counsellor ; if you 
can command these elements to silence, and work the peace of the present, we 
will not hand a rope more ; use your authority. If you cannot, give thanks 
you have lived so long, and make yourself ready in your cabin for the mis- 
chance of the hour, if it so hap. Cheerily, good hearts. — Out of our way, I 
say. \_Exit. 



" The Tempest:' Z^ 

GoN. I bave great comfort from tliis fellow ; methinks he hath no drown- 
ing mark upon him ; his complexion is perfect gallows. Stand fast, good fate, 
to his hanging ! Make the rope of his destiny our cable, for our own doth 
little advantage ! If he be not born to be hanged, our case is miserable. 

[JExewnt. 
Re-enter Boatswain. 
Boats. Down with the topmast ; yare; lower, lower; bring her to try with 
main course. \_A cry within^ A plague upon this howling ! they are louder 
than the weather, or our office— 

He-enter Sebastian, Antonio, and Gonzalo. 
Yet again ? what do you do here ? Shall we give o'er, and drown ! Have 

you a mind to sink ! 

****** 

Ant. "We are merely cheated of our lives by 

This wide-chapped rascal. Would thou mightst lie drowning. 
The washing of ten tides ! 
GoN. He'll be hanged yet ; 

Though every drop of water swear against it. 
And gape at wid'st to glut him. 
\_A confused oioise toithinJ] Mercy on us ! We split ! we split ! Farewell 
my wife and children ! Farewell, brother ! We split, we split, we split ! 
Ant. Let's all sink with the king. \_Exit. 

After this last toucliing evidence of loyalty/ the storm sub- 
sides, and the parties distribute themselves about the island, on 
which they have been stranded, and upon which there are but 
three other persons — Prospero, Miranda, and Caliban. By the 
above it will be perceived that the boatswain, who labours hard 
and honestly at his vocation, who speaks nothing but good sense, 
and who is doing his utmost to save the ship, is denounced as a 
cur and a rogue by the lords, simply because he ventures to 
remonstrate hastily with the gentlemen of the scene for interfering 
with his imperative and vitally important duties. Further on, 
Shakespeare, in the character of Prospero, and evidently speaking 
in a tone he would have used for himself, directs Ariel to have 
the wandering ship's company brought together, in order to be- 
hold a '^ masque ^^ of fairies, which he has prepared for the 
general entertainment. 

Peospeeo {to Ariel). Go bring the rallle, 

O'er whom I give thee power, here to this place ! 

The rabble meaning, of course, the ship^s company, and all of the 
dramatis personce who are not gentlemen. 



84 ShaJzespeare^ from an American Point of View. 

I think tliat the unvarying inclination which Shakespeare 
shows, to speak with contempt of the labouring classes sprang from 
some notion in the poet's mind that he was a gentleman himself. 
This idea finds support in the fact that he could trace his name, 
on one side^ to the battle of Hastings, and his ancestors, on both 
sides, to the battle of Bosworth Field ; but more distinctly in 
the fact of his having laid out a considerable sum of money, 
after he had become rich by theatrical management, to purchase 
for his father a coat of arms. This gives a sharp point to the 
remark of Halliwell upon the death of John Shakespeare, that 
"it would have pleased us better had we found Shakespeare 
raising monuments to his parents in the venerable pile which 
now covers his own remains.^^ The efibrt to have his father made 
" a gentleman of worship " supplies the key to the otherwise 
strange contradiction of his always being so bitterly derisive of 
'^greasy mechanics,^'' '^ woollen slaves,''' and peasants," as he 
terms the masses from whose midst he sprang. New converts, 
as we know, are usually the most vehement denouncers of 
rejected associates and principles. 



"TWO GENTLEMEN OE VEEONA.'"^ 

It is agreed on all sides that the " Two Gentlemen of Verona " 
was among the earliest of Shakespeare's dramatic compositions, 
and some commentators think it was his very first play — " The 
Comedy of Errors " being, probably, his second. The ' Two 
Gentlemen ^•' did not reach the dignity of print, however, until 
the publication of the first general collection, known as the 
folio of 1623, seven years after Shakespeare's death. The reason 
why it was not placed first in the catalogue, and the others made 
to follow, according to the supposed chronological order of their 
production, was doubtless because it was feared that this plan, 
by placing the weakest of our poet's productions at the front, 
would do him injustice with every fresh reader, who, starting 
with the play as an example, might not be induced to pursue 
the study further. Therefore, " The Tempest," one of his 
most highly finished productions, was placed foremost, and 
the rest followed without order, so far at least as the come- 
dies were concerned, with the view of giving a rapid exhi- 



" Two Gentlemen of Veronal 85 

bition of the writer's infinite variety. "But/' says Kniglit, 
''there must have been years of labour before the genius 
that produced the ' Two Gentlemen of Verona ' could have 
produced ' The Tempest.' " In factj it is so far below the mark 
of the latter magnificently-worked-out conception, that many 
have seriously doubted the authenticity of the "Two Gentle- 
men '^ as a Shakespearian production; while several critics of 
position, among whom are Hanmer, Theobald, and Upton, de- 
nounce the piece as spurious altogether. There can scarcely be a 
doubt, however (though Shakespeare can easily be convicted of 
having adopted the story of the piece from others), that the text 
was all his own. Upon this question Dr. Johnson very pertinently 
says, at the close of his dictum in favour of its authenticity as a 
Shakespeare play, " if it be taken from him, to whom shall it be 
given ? " The Doctor, in fixing the literary status of this work, 
continues : — 

" In this play there is a strange mixture of knowledge and 
ignorance, of care and negligence. .... The author conveys his 
heroes by sea from one inland town to another in the same 
country ; he places the Emperor at Milan, and sends his young 
men to attend him, but never mentions him more. He makes 
Proteus, after an interview with Silvia, say he has only seen her 
picture ; and, if we may credit the old copies, he has, by mis- 
taking places, left his scenery inextricable. The reason of all 
this confusion seems to be that he took his story from a novel, 
which he sometimes followed and sometimes forsook, sometimes 
remembered and sometimes forgot." " It has been well re- 
marked that such historical and geographical blunders as these 
could hardly have been committed by Lord Bacon, even in his 
earliest youth. In all popular knowledge Shakespeare was a 
master. He does not err in his illustrations drawn from hunting 
and hawking and natural phenomena, or in such natural history 
as is learnt from close observation of the habits of animals. He 
blunders in things which could only have been derived from 
book-learning, in which Bacon excelled." ^ 

These remarks lead us directly to the further observation, that 
the production of the " Two Gentlemen," being generally placed 
at the date of 1591, when Bacon was thirty-one years of age, 

' Wm. H. Smith's " Inquiry," p. 101. London, 1857. 



86 Shakespeare^ from an American Point of View. 

could hardly have received these errors at his hands ; while the 
supposition that he could have permitted them to live under his 
eye, uncorrected, even after the plays had attained the highest 
fame and the folio had gone through several editions, is not 
entitled to a moment's entertainment. If the play was thought 
worthy, by Bacon, of being put surreptitiously into Shakespeare's 
hands, for transcription and performance, it surely must have 
been thought deserving, after it had become part of a great fame, 
of being retouched by a few correctional notes. And these could 
have been as easily handed to Shakespeare as the original MSS., 
or have been sent to the publishers of the folio, after Shakespeare's 
death; for Bacon outlived Shakespeare long enough to know that 
the poet had already acquired a fame and received an homage from 
mankind which he, with all of his triumphs in philosophy, could 
never hope to reach. The idea that Bacon, with his covetous 
imagination, could have been indifferent to such fame as this, 
seems to be beyond all the bounds of reason ; while the notion 
that the mind which originally desired the production of the play 
would not have corrected its errors, after it had detected them, 
appears to be utterly absurd. In the first place, the experience 
of Bacon could not have made these errors ; but admitting that 
they had escaped him originally, through the haste of writing, 
he must have detected them afterward, through the very neces- 
sities of his local, legal, and political career. Indeed, if the " Two 
Gentlemen" is to be received as one of the Shakespeare plays, it 
seems to me that the whole Baconian theory falls at once. It 
is simply beyond the reach of belief (if the play were written 
by Bacon) that he never corrected it; since we know, through 
Bacon's biographers, that, for greater accuracy, he frequently 
revised all his works, and transcribed his "Novum Organum" 
twelve times. 

The story of this play is very simple. Valentine and Proteus, 
who give title to the piece, and who are hardly more than boys, 
are scions of two wealthy and noble families of Verona. The first 
act opens with the departure of the former on a travelling tour, 
by way of increasing his accomplishments, and on taking leave 
of Proteus (who, being in love, prefers to remain at home) he 
indulges in some smart reflections on his friend's amorous in- 
fatuation. Presently the father of Proteus, having heard that 
Valentine has gone abroad, declares that his son shall improve 



" Two Gentlemen of Verona.'^ 87 

himself in like manner; and consequently, at one day's notice, 
and without giving him more than a bare opportunity to take a 
hasty leave of his sweetheart Julia, sends him also to the Em- 
peror's court. Before Proteus arrives there, however, Valentine 
has so well improved his time that he has succeeded in making 
Silvia, the Duke of Milan's daughter, fall in love with him; 
the only diflSculty, however, being that Silvia stands en- 
gaged, by the Duke's special permission, to Sir Thurio, a very 
wealthy nobleman of his court. By-and-by Proteus appears, 
and he at once, forgetful of his vows to Julia and his duty to his 
friend, falls in love with Silvia himself. Nay, worse, though 
told by Valentine, in the sacred confidence of friendship, that he 
and Silvia are betrothed, indeed, are on the eve of an elopement 
for the purpose of marriage, Proteus basely betrays this secret 
to the Duke, and seeks the ruin of his friend, in the hope of 
gaining ultimate possession of Silvia himself. The traitor justifies 
this shocking perfidy to Julia on the one hand, and to Valentine 
on the other, in a soliloquy, in which occur these abominable 
lines : — 

Unheedful vows may heedfuUy be broken ; 
And be wants wit tbat wants resolved will 
To learn bis wit to excbange the bad for better. 

Act II. Scene 6. 

The result of this villany by Proteus is the banishment of 
Valentine, who, falling in with a band of outlaws, is made their 
captain, while Silvia, rendered desperate by her misfortunes, and 
spurning the false love of Proteus, escapes from her confinement 
to a neighbouring forest, under the protection of a gentleman 
named Sir Eglamour, to whom she appoints a rendezvous — to 
use her own devout language — 

At friar Patrick's cell, 

Where I intend holy confession. 

News of her flight, in company with Eglamour, is soon brought 
to the Duke, and he informs Proteus of it as follows : — 

Duke. She's fled unto ihsd, peasant Valentine; 
And Eglamour is in her company. 
'Tis true ; for friar Lawrence met them both, 
As he in penance wandered through the forest : 



88 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

Him, he knew well, and guess'd that it was she ; 
But, being mask'd, he was not sure of it : 
Besides, she did intend confession 
At Patrick's cell this even ; and there she was not. 

Here we find united evidences of that unvarying Catholic reve- 
rence which Shakespeare always expresses when speaking of a 
priest j and likewise of that contempt for humble life which I 
have pointed out as another of his peculiarities^ in the opprobrious 
use he makes of the word peasant, by applying it as an epithet 
of contempt to the well-born Valentine. Proteus has previously 
used the same angry epithet to Launce. 

But to return to the story. Proteus, having obtained from the 
DukCj as above described, the direction of Silvia's flight and of 
his intention to pursue her, takes with him his page, Sebastian, 
and hastens to the forest, with the view of anticipating the 
Duke, and of obtaining possession of her for himself, in 
advance of the Duke's arrival. It appears, however, that, 
before Proteus gets to the forest with his party, a portion of the 
outlaws capture Silvia; Sir Eglamour, her escourt, prudently 
running away. Her deplorable situation then is thus described 
by Shakespeare : — 

Act Y. Scene 3.— T/^e Forest. 
Enter Sylvia and Outlaios. 
Out. Come, come ; 

Be patient, we must bring you to our captain . 
SiL. A thousand more mischances than this one 

Have learn'd me how to brook this patiently. 

2 Out. Come, bring her away. 

1 Out. Where is the gentleman that was with her ? 

3 Out. Being nimble-footed, he hath outrun us. 

But Moyses, and Valerius, follow him. 

Go thou with her to the west end of the wood. 

There is our captain ; we'll follow him that's fled. 

The thicket is beset, he cannot 'scape. 
1 Out. Come, I must bring you to our captain's cave ; 

Fear not : he bears an honourable mind, 

And will not use a woman lawlessly. 
SiL. Valentine, this I endure for thee. \_JSxeunt, 

The scene then shifts, and shows Valentine, alone, in another 
part of the forest. He is in a sad mood, and utters a long 
soliloquy, when, being disturbed by the sound of a noisy conflict 



" Two Gentlemen of Veronal 89 

(that turns out to be the rescue of Silvia from the outlaws by 
Proteus and his party), he utters these lines : — 

These are my mates, that make their will their law. 
Have some unhappy passenger in chase ; 
They love me well ; yet I have much to do, 
To keep them from uncivil outrages. 

Withdraw thee, Valentine; who's this comes here? [/S^ejjs aside. 

Enter Peoteus, Silvia and Julia. 

It must now be mentioned tbat Julia, the betrothed of Proteus, 
not having heard from her false lover for a long while, had some 
time before left Verona disguised as a page, and had succeeded 
in entering the service of Proteus, under the name of Sebastian, 
in which character she now accompanies him. With this expla- 
nation, and with Valentine listening in the thicket, we will return 
to the text. 

Peg. {to Silvia). Madam, this service I have done for you 

(Though you respect not aught your servant doth), ' 

To hazard life, and rescue you from him 

That would have forced your honour and your love. 

Vouchsafe me, for my meed, hut one fair look ; ^ 

A smaller hoon than this I cannot beg. 

And less than this, I am sure, you cannot give. 
Val. {from his concealment). How like a dream is this I see and hear; 

Love, lend me patience to forbear a while. 
SiL. miserable, unhappy that I am ! 
Pbo. Unhappy were you, madam, ere I came ; 

But, by my coming, I have made you happy. 
Sii. By thy approach thou mak'st me most unhappy. 
Jul. And me, when he approacheth to your presence. {Aside. 

SiL. Had I been seized by a hungry lion, 
% I would have been a breakfast to the beast. 

Rather than have false Proteus rescue me. 

Seaven be judge, how Hove Valentine, 
Whose life's as tender to me as m,y soul; 

And full as much (for more there cannot be), 

1 do detest false perjured Proteus : 
Therefore, begone ; solicit me no more. 

Peo. Nay, if the gentle spirit of moving words 

Can no way change you to a milder form, 

I'll woo you like a soldier, at arms' end : 

And love you 'gainst the nature of \o^q, force you. 
SiL. O Seaven ! 
Peo. Til force thee yield to my desire. 



90 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

Val. (discovering himself). Euffian, let go that rude uncivil touch ; 

Thou friend of an ill fashion ! 
Peo. Yalentine ; 

Val. Thou common friend, that's without faith or love ; 

(For such is a friend now), treacherous man ! 

Thou hast beguiled my hopes ; nought but mine eye 

Could have persuaded me : Now 1 dare not say, 

I have one friend alive ; thou would'st disprove me. 

Who should be trusted now, when one's right hand 

Is perjured to the bosom ? Proteus, 

I am sorry I must never trust thee more. 

But count the world a stranger for thy sahe. 

The private wound is deepest. time, most curst ; 

'Mongst all foes, that a friend should be the worst. 
Peo. My shame and guilt confound me — 

Porgive me, Valentine ; if hearty sorrow 

Be a suflScient ransom for ofience, 

I tender it here ; I do as truly suffer 

As e'er I did commit, 
Val. Then I am paid : 

And once again I do receive thee honest ; 

Who by repentance is not satisfied, 

Is nor of heaven, nor earth ; for these are pleased ; 

By penitence the Eternal's wrath 's appeased : 

And, that my love may appear plain and free, 

All that was mine in Silvia, I give thee. 
Jul. me unhappy ! {Faints. 

Peo. Look to the boy. 

Julia is then discovered. No wonder that she fainted under the 
indescribable poltroonery and baseness of Valentine in resigning 
the devoted and heroic Silvia to the villain Proteus, because the 
latter, under a sense of policy and fear, expressed sudden contri- 
tion for his execrable crimes. Proteus, however, does not tlfink 
it prudent to accept Silvia under such an offer from the chief 
of a band of outlaws ; so he makes a virtue of necessity by 
renewing his fealty to Julia in about six lines. Whereupon 
Valentine, finding that Proteus declines to receive Silvia at 
his hands, makes the original lovers happy by joining them 
together. 

Peo. Heaven ! were man 

But constant, he were perfect; that one error 

Fills him with faults ; makes him run through all sins : 

Inconstancy falls off, ere it begins : 

What is in Silvia's face, but I may spy 

More fresh in Julia's with a constant eye ? 



*' Two Gentlemen of Y<^^ona," 91 

Val. Come, come, a hand from either : 

Let me be blest to make this happy close ; 

'Twere pity two such friends should be long foes. 
Peo. Bear witness, Heaven, I have my wish for ever. 
Jul. And I have mine. 

Everything being thus amicably settled, it unfortunately hap- 
pens that those incorrigible fellows, the outlaws, suddenly turn 
up again in another act of villainy. 

Enter Outlaws, with the Duke and Thueio. 

Outlaw. A prize, a prize, a prize ! 

Val. Forbear, forbear, I say ; it is my lord the Duke, 
Your grace is welcome to a man disgraced. 

Thurio, hereupon discovering Silvia, at once lays claim to her, 
but Valentine, who has suddenly recovered Ms affection also, 
threatens him with instant death if he dare " take but possession 
of her with a touch," concluding his fiery menace with — 

" I dare thee but to breathe upon my love ! " 

Thurio, of course, gives Silvia up ; upon which the Duke, in 
disgust with his cowardice, denounces him as base and degenerate, 
and magnanimously hands Silvia over to Sir Valentine. Then 
follows the climax, in the following sudden conversions to morality, 
on the part of the brigands, whose miraculous repentance at once 
receives a reward which elicits our amazement : — 

Val. I thank your grace : the gift hath made me happy. 

I now beseech you, for your daughter s sake. 

To grant one boon that I shall ask of you. 
Duke. I grant it for thine own, whate'er it be. 
Val. These banish'd men, that I have kept withal, 

Are men endued with worthy qualities ; 

Forgive them what they have committed here. 

And let them be recall'd from their exile. 

They are reformed, civil, fuU of good, 

And fit for great employment, worthy lord. 
Duke. Thou hast prevail'd ; I pardon them, and thee : 

Dispose of them as thoio knoivest their deserts. 

Come, let us go : we will conclude all jars 

"With triumphs, mirth, and rare solemnity. 

Now, as Valentine represents these outlaws (who had given 
him so much to do to keep them from uncivil outrage) to be men 
endued with woriliy qualities, and declares them to be not only 



'92 Shakespeare, from ait American Point of View. ' 

" reformed, civil, and good/' but " fit for great employment/^ 
the carte hlancJie whicli the Duke gives to him to " dispose of 
them^' as he 'Mcnow'st their deserts/' can hardly mean less than 
the appointment of them to positions under Government. A fine 
request, truly, to make for Silvia's sake, who had been rudely 
captured by these thieves ; and for a father to make, who had 
himself just escaped from their attempt to rifle and, perhaps, to 
murder him. And, in order. to make sure that these lawless 
rascals would have not hesitated, because of any qualms of con- 
science, to have had recourse to the latter extremity, the reader 
has only to turn to their own description of themselves at the 
opening of Act IV., when they chose Valentine to be their cap- 
tain. But it is no portion of my task to show the contradictions 
and incongruities of Shakespeare, except where they bear upon 
the points we have in hand ; and I have, therefore, but to say, in 
excuse for the extent of my extracts from the " Two Gentlemen,'' 
that the numerous absurdities they exhibit against our poet, 
do not seem to be the logical product of the mind of such an 
exact lawyer, statesman, and philosopher as Bacon. 



" The Merry Wives of Windsor T 93 



CHAPTER XL 

" THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR/^ 

The events of tliis play are supposed to take place between the 
First and Second Parts of " Hemy IV." Falstaff is still in 
favour at courts and the compliment of Ford on his tvarUke p'e- 
parations must, saj's Mr. Harness, allude to the service he had 
done at Shrewsbury. Shallow, Bardolph, Pistol, and Nym are 
the same as in the former plays, though it is evident that Mrs. 
Quickly, the servant of Doctor Caius, the French physician^ is 
quite a different person from hostess Quickly, of the Boar's Head, 
in Eastcheap, who subsequently married Ancient Pistol. The 
tradition respecting the origin of this comedy is that Queen 
Elizabeth was so well pleased with the admirable character of 
Falstaff that she ordered Shakespeare to continue it and show 
him in love. To this we owe " The Merry Wives of Windsor -," 
and, says Mr. Dennis, who, in 1702, somewhat rearranged the 
play under the title of " The Comical Gallant,^' " she was so 
eager to see it acted that she co'mmanded it to be finished in 
fourteen days.''' Tradition further says that she was exceedingly 
pleased at its representation. All of which, if true, must con- 
vince the thoughtful reader who has perused the delectable 
dialogues between Doll Tearsheet and Sir John and the free 
language of " The Merry Wives of Windsor,'' that the charm 
exercised over her Majesty by such very broad allusions proves 
her to have been a true daughter of Henry YIII. Let me be 
excused, therefore, if I quote a supporting picture of her Majesty, 
by 'Edward Dowden, LL.D., Professor of English Literature in 
the University of Dublin, and Vice-President of the new 
Shakespeare Society, from an admirable volume, entitled " A 
Critical Study of Shakespeare's Mind and Art," which has just 
(1875) been issued from the London press: — 



94 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

" Ealeigh rode by the Queen in silver armour ; the Jesuit Drexilius esti- 
mated the value of the shoes worn by this minion of the English Cleopatra 
at six thousand six hundred gold pieces." 

Now, as Professor Dowden is a devout member of the political 
Anglican Church, a very learned man withal, and knows 
exactly what he is writing about, I trust this allusion of his to 
the possible moral status of the virgin Queen will not be deemed 
disloyal or irreverent. 

" The Merry Wives of Windsor ''•' is deserving of especial notice 
from the fact that it is the only one of Shakespeare^s plays the 
superior action of which is not devoted to kings and queens and 
princes and nobles, but which confines itself wholly to the ordi- 
nary characters of homely or middle life. It exhibits its rela- 
tions to our religious theory mainly in the gross ridicule which 
it lavishes upon the Welsh parson. Sir Hugh Evans, and the 
fecundity, not to say feculence, of the tavern wit which flows 
from Falstaff and his mates with a readiness which does not 
seem peculiarly Baconian. 

Sir Hugh, who is hardly a degree above a mere buffoon, 
declares his sacred calling in the first scene by saying to 
Shallow, " If Sir John Falstaff have committed disparagements 
unto you, / am of the CImrch, and will be glad to do my benevo- 
lence, to make my atonements and compromises between you.^^ 
Further on he is made to profanely say, " The tevil and his tam ! 
what phrase is this ? " He is next engaged in a duel with the 
French doctor, in order that he may be made the butt and 
laughter of the company, and then makes his appearance in a 
tavern, with the noisy, vulgar host of which he shows himself 
to be thoroughly cheek by jowl. Shakespeare never treats a 
Catholic priest after this irreverent and unseemly fashion. 

There is not much more to be said of this play from our 
point of view, save that Falstaff uses the term of peasant in the 
sense of cur against Ford, whose jealousy is filling his purse ; or 
perhaps to notice one further of Lord Chief Justice Campbell's 
proofs of Shakespeare's legal acquirements, in addition to the 
one quoted from the same authority in the last chapter. 

" In writing the second scene of Act IV. of ' The Merry 
Wives of Windsor,' " says Lord Campbell, " Shakespeare's head 
was so full of the recondite terms of law that he makes a lady 
thus pour them out in a confidential tete-a-tete conversation with 



^^ Measure for Measure" 95 

another lady, while discoursing of the revenge they two should 
take upon an old gentleman (Falstaff) for having made an un- 
successful attempt upon their virtue : — 

" Mes. Page. I'll have tlie cudgel hallowed, and Lung o'er the altar ; it 
hath done meritorious service. 

" Mes. Foed. What think you ? May we, with the warrant of woman- 
hood, and the witness of a good conscience, pursue him with any further 
revenge ? 

" Mes. Page. The spirit of wantonness is, sure, scared out of him ; if the 
devil have him not in fee-simple, with fine and recovery, he will never, I 
think, in the way of waste, attempt us again." 

" This Merry Wife of Windsor/' remarks his lordship, " is 
supposed to know that the highest estate which the devil could 
hold in any of his victims was 2^, fee-simjple, strengthened hj fine 
and recovery, Shakespeare himself may prohably have become 
aware of the law upon this subject when it was explained to him 
in answer to questions he put to the attorney, his master, while 
engrossing the deeds to be executed upon the purchase of a 
Warwickshire estate with a doubtful title." ^ 

Now, I have no doubt, for my own part, that Shakespeare 
might have acquired as much legal knowledge as the above indi- 
cates, through his own purchases of land. Fine and recovery, as 
an artifice for perfecting title to land, was like, in policy to the 
legislative stratagem known to modern times as a " motion to 
reconsider,^' accompanied by a supplementary motion to " lay on 
the table,'' on the part of a majority who have just carried a 
bill. The effect of this device is, that the bill is thus made 
reasonably safe from further peril. Every man of fair expe- 
rience knows that. 



"measure eor measuee." 

The date of the production of this fine play is fixed by Mr. 
F.' J. Furnival,' in his " Trial Table of the Order of WiUiam 
Shakespeare's Plays," at 1603, when our poet was forty years of 
age. It was performed, says Gervinius, in 1604, but not pub- 

* Lord Campbell, pp. 40, 41. 

2 Mr. Fumival is the Director of the new Shakespeare Society of London. 



96 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

lished until 1633. Dr. Jolinson speaks of its merits with such 
indiflferenee that it would almost seem as if he had never read it ; 
while to other equally competent critics it is on a level, so far as 
the intellectual elevation of its language and imagery are con- 
cerned, with the very finest productions of Shakespeare's genius. 
To my judgment its moral management is faulty, and the great 
principle of retributive justice is sadly sacrificed to a weak fancy 
for forgiveness; but nothing can excel the exquisite delicacy, 
combined with the tremendous illustrative force, of the language 
allotted to Isabella, who is the main figure in the piece. 

The plot was familiar even before Shakespeare's time, but he 
undoubtedly adopted it from Whetstone's play of "Promos and 
Cassandra," published in 1578, which had no success, and which 
was itself translated from an Italian novel by Geraldi Cinthio. 
The main story is that of a pure sister pleading to a corrupt 
judge for a condemned brother's life, which sister is allowed to 
ransom his existence only by a surrender of her chastity to that 
functionary. The judge, succeeding in his aim, then orders the 
execution of the brother (Claudio) to take place, for fear he may 
seek revenge for " so receiving a dishonoured life." This is the 
original story; but Shakespeare changes it, so that Isabella, the 
sister, when her honour is at its crisis, sends a female representa- 
tive, in the undistinguishing darkness of the night, to perform 
her expected part with Angelo, the judge, and thus herself 
escapes all taint. To justify her pure mind to the pursuance of 
this double course, however, Isabella acts under the direction of 
a holy friar, who provides, as her nocturnal substitute, a maiden 
under betrothal to Lord Angelo, the judge. The real duke is the 
disguised friar who counsels Isabella to this act, and who, when 
he finds that Angelo, his deputy, still orders the sentence of 
death to be carried out against Claudio, privately interposes his 
authority with the prison officials, and sends to Angelo the head 
of a man who had that day died in his cell, as Claudio's head. 
The severed head deceives Angelo and Isabella both; where- 
upon the agonized and desperate girl bursts into threats of 
personal vengeance upon the villainous deputy, and is about 
starting off to execute them, when the friar, gently check- 
ing her rage, informs her that the real duke comes home on 
the morrow, and advises her to intercept him, along with 
Mariana, on his public entrance to the city, and then to con- 



" Measure for Measure''- 97 

spicuously lay their wrongs before him, in the very presence of 
Lord Angelo. 

This advice is followed by Isabella and Mariana, and as the 
duke comes into the city, surrounded by his nobles, the young 
ladies cast themselves before him, and, denouncing Angelo, 
demand justice on him. 

Dtjke. Eelate your wrongs : In what ? By whom ? Be brief : 

Here is lord Angelo shall give you justice ! 

Eeveal yourself to him. 
IsAB. 0, worthy duke, 

You bid me seek redemption of the devil : 

Hear me yourself; for that which I must speak 

Must either punish me, not being believed, 

Or wring redress from you : hear me, 0, hear me, here. 
Ang. My lord, her wits, I fear me, are not firm : 

She hath been a suitor to me for her brother, 

Cut off hy course of justice ! 
IsAB. By course of justice ! 

An G. And she will speak most bitterly, and strange. 
IsAB. Most strange, but yet most truly, will I speak : 

That Angelo's forsworn ; is it not strange ? 

That Angelo's a murderer ; is it not strange? 

That Angelo is an adulterous thief, 

An hypocrite, a virgin-violator ; 

Is it not strange, and strange ? 
DtTKE. Nay, ten times strange. 

The duke affects to disbelieve Isabella, and orders her off to 
prison. Mariana is then required to tell Jier story. She there- 
upon recites her betrothal to Angelo, and his abandonment of her 
because of the failure of her fortune. Next comes her description 
of the midnight consummation of her betrothal by keeping 
Isabella's appointment with the deputy in the dark. Finally, 
unveiling, Mariana shows her face to Angelo, and claims to be 
his wife. The duke hereupon demands of Angelo if he knows 
this woman. 

Ang. My lord, I must confess, I know this woman ; 

And, five years since, there was some speech of marriage 
Betwixt myself and her ; which was broke off, 
Partly, for that her promised proportions 
Came short of composition ; hut, in chief, 
For that her reputation was disvalued 
In levity : since which time of five years 



98 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View, 

I never spake with her, saw her, nor heard from her. 
Upon my faith and honour. 
Maei. Noble prince. 

As there comes light from heaven, and words from breath, 
As there is sense in truth, and truth in virtue, 
I am aflSanced this man's wife, as strongly 
As words could make up vows : and, my good lord, 
But Tuesday night last gone, in his garden-house 
He knew me as a wife : As this is true 
Let me in safety raise me from my knees ; 
Or else for ever be confixed here, 
A marble monument ! 
Anq. I did but smile till now ; 

Now, good my lord, give me the scope of justice ; 
My patience here is touched : I do perceive. 
These poor informal women are no more 
But instruments of some more mightier member 
That sets them on : Let me have way, my lord. 
To find this practice out. 
Duke. Ay, with all my heart ; 

And punish them unto your height of pleasure. 

The duke now goes out on some pretence^ but really to resume 
his friar's habit, and to presently return in that disguise. At the 
same time, from the other side of the stage, but still in the cus- 
tody of officers, again comes Isabella. Angelo, on the exit of 
the duke, had at once resumed all his former arrogance, and as 
soon as he sets eyes upon the returning friar, of whom he has 
heard so much, and through whose guidance of Isabella and 
Mariana he had suffered so much trouble, he assumes a lofty 
tone, and orders him to be arrested. The duke being hustled 
by the officers, is then discovered under the friar's cowl, and 
being thus recognized, at once assumes his regal dignity, and 
waives Angelo from the ducal seat. 

Duke {to Angelo). Sir, by your leave : 

Hast thou or word, or wit, or impudence, 

That yet can do thee ofBce ? If thou hast. 

Rely upon it till my tale be heard, 

And hold no longer out. 
Ang. my dread lord, 

I should be guiltier than my guiltiness. 

To think I can be undiscernible. 

When I perceive your grace, like power divine, 

Hath look'd upon my passes ; then, good prince. 



" Measure for Measure.'^ 99 

No longer session hold upon my shame, 

But let my trial be my own confession, 

Immediate sentence then, and sequent death, 

Is all the grace I beg. 
Duke. Come hither, Mariana : 

Say, wast thou e'er contracted to this woman ? 
Ang. I was, my lord. 
Duke. Go take her hence, and marry her instantly.^ 

Do you the office, friar ; which consummate. 

Return him here again : — Go with him, provost. 

{Exeunt Angelo, Maeiana, Feiae Petee, and Provost. 
Duke. Come hither, Isabel : 

Your friar is now your prince : As I was then 

Advertising, and holy to your business. 

Not changing heart with habit, I am still 

Attorney 'd at your service. 
IsAB. O give me pardon, 

That I, your vassal, have employ'd and pain'd 

Your unknown sovereignty. 
Duke. You are pardon'd, Isabel, 

And now, dear maid, be you as free to us. 

Your brother's death, I know, sits at your heart ; 

And you may marvel, why I obscured myself. 

Labouring to save his life ; and would not rather 

Make rash remonstrance of my hidden power. 

Than let him so be lost : most kind maid. 

It was the swift celerity of his death. 

Which I did think with slower foot came on. 

That brain'd my purpose : But, peace be with him ! 

That life is better life past fearing death. 

Than that which lives to fear ; make it your comfort. 

So happy is your brother. 
Se-enter Angelo, Maeiana, Feiae Petee, and Provost. 
IsAB. I do, my lord. 

Duke. For this new-married man, approaching here, 

Whose salt imagination yet hath wrong'd 

Your well-defended honour, you must pardon 

For Mariana's sake ; but as he adjudged your brother, 

(Being criminal, in double violation 

Of sacred chastity and of promise breach. 

Thereon dependent, for your brother's life). 

The very mercy of the law cries out 

Most audible, even from his proper tongue. 

An Angela for Claudio, death for death. 

Haste still pays haste, and leisure answers leisure ; 

Like doth quit like, and Measure still for Measure. 

Then, Angelo, thy fault's thus manifested ; 



lOO Shakespeare, f7^om an American Point of View. 

Which, though thou would'st deny, denies thee vantage ; 
We do condemn thee to the very block 
Where Claudio stoop'd to death, and with like haste ; 
Away with him. 

Maei. 0, my most gracious lord, 

I hope you will not mock me with a husband ! 

Duke. It is your husband mock'd you with a husband ; 
Consenting to the safeguard of your honour, 
I thought your marriage fit ; else imputation 
For that he knew you, might reproach your life, 
And choke your good to come ; for his possessions, 
Although by confiscation they are ours, 
We do instate and widow you withal, 
To buy you a better husband. 

.Mariana hereupon sweetly entreats Isabel to help her beg of 
the duke the life of Angelo ; but the duke checks the movement 
by the following* sublime rebuke : — 

DtTKE. Against all sense do you importune her. 

Should she kneel down in mercy, of this fact, 
Her brother's ghost his paved bed would break, 
And take her hence in horror. 

Mariana, nevertheless, perseveres and succeeds in touching the 
deepest springs of Isabella's saintly nature, who, falling on her 
knees before the duke, thus addresses him : — 

IsAB. Most bounteous sir, 

Look, if it please you, on this man condemn'd, 

As if my brother lived ; I partly think 

A due sincerity govern'd his deeds, 

Till he did look on me ; since it is so. 

Let him not die : My brother had but justice, 

In that he did the thing for which he died ; 

For Arigelo, 

His act did not o'ertake his bad intent; 

And must be buried but as an intent 

That perish'd by the way ; thoughts are no subjects, 

Intents but merely thoughts. 
Duke. Your suit's unprofitable : stand up, I say — 

I have bethought me of another fault :— 

Provost, how came it Claudio was beheaded 

At an unusual hour ? 

In a few minutes afterward Claudio is brought to life, par- 
doned, and handed over to Isabella, whereupon the all-forgiving 



" Measure for Measure. " i o i 

duke thus addresses her, and winds up the situation with one 
general joy : — 

Duke. And, for your lovely sake. 

Give me your hand, and say you will be mine. 
He is my brother too : But fitter time for that. 
By this, lord Angelo perceives he's safe ; 
MethinlvS, I see a quick'ning in his eye : — 
Well, Angelo, your evil quits you toell : 
Look that you love your wife ; her worth, worth yours. 
I find an apt remission in myself. 

It is hardly possible for language to picture a more base, blood- 
thirsty, and unpitying miscreant than Angelo. To the last mo- 
ment, even in the presence of the duke, he maintains his villany 
by misrepresenting Isabella, and by relentlessly defaming the 
character of Mariana. In fact, he does not cease to lie against 
them both, until he is actually unmasked beyond all remedy ; 
and then, like Proteus, he suddenly confesses, and, as every 
reader must regret, is as readily forgiven. In this respect, the 
moral of the play is as deplorable as that of the "Two Gentlemen 
of Verona,^' and through its utter defeat of the principle of retri- 
butive justice, could hardly have been the inspiration of such a 
stern lawyer as Lord Bacon. With Shakespeare, however, a big- 
natured, good-tempered man, with a prodigious and sympathetic 
genius, but scarcely any conscience, this pleasant rounding of 
the whole story was a natural inclination. By following this 
course, which, it may be remarked, was usual with our poet in 
the earlier part of his career (indeed, until he arrived at the 
period of his deepest tragedies), he evinced an unruffled serenity 
of character. It may also be observed, that in preferring these 
happy terminations, Shakespeare evinces one form of the art of 
theatrical management by sending his audiences home pleased, 
thus unconsciously testifying to the tender and generous 
nature of the people. 

But something, at the same time, let me add, is due to the 
principle of justice ; and there can be no doubt that Coleridge is 
right -when he says " that sincere repentance on the part of An- 
gelo was impossible," and therefore regrets that the unparelleled 
villain was not executed. But Gervinius finds excuse for the 
mercy of the duke in the fact that, " apart from poetry," such a 
doom would not have been in strict conformity with either law or 
8 



I02 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

justice. Gervinius' position is, that Angelo's double crime — ^tlie 
intended disgrace of Isabella and the death of Claudio — had not 
been carried out, and that he had been consequently guilty only 
in intent. But this argument does not justify his pardon, for 
Angelo had executed Claudio as far as his bloody and merciless 
purpose could do so, and had consummated, with Mariana, the 
very crime for which, under the statutes of Vienna, Claudio had 
been condemned. Nevertheless, it must be admitted that the 
penalty for this last particular offence could hardly have been 
administered by the duke, who, in the habit of a friar, had advised 
it. Regarding the play as a whole, however, we may safely 
conclude that it does not inculcate either statesmanship or law ; 
at any rate, not such statesmanship or logical exactitude as 
might be expected to make their development from the mind of 
Sir Francis Bacon. 

I may here observe, I find but one instance in this play bear- 
ing upon Shakespeare^s low estimate of the people ; and that 
occurs in the first scene of the first act, when the duke is about 
going into retirement, or, to speak more strictly, when he is 
about assuming his incognito, under the . name of Friar Lode- 
wick : — 

Duke. I love the people, 

But do not love to stage me to their eyes. 
Though it do well, I do not relish well 
Their loud applause and aves vehement. 

But this is only a just sneer at popular servility, especially as it 
must have shown itself to the duke. 

Shakespeare^s Law, I. 

Lord Campbell, in his essay examining the legal acquirements 
of Shakespeare, presents four instances, which he considers 
rather as affirmative. One of these was treated in Chapter IX., 
and consisted of the line " good counsellors need no clients "-, the 
other three are as follows : 

II. 

Says Campbell, "In Act II. Scene I, the ignorance of special 
pleading and of the nature of actions at law betrayed by Elbow 
Ihe constable, when slandered, is ridiculed by the LordEscalus in 



" Measure for Measure!' 103 

a manner vvliicli proves that the composer of the dialogue was 
himself fully initiated in these mysteries -" — 

Elbow. Oh, tliou caitiff! Oli, thou varlet ! Oh, thou wicked Hannibal ! 
-T respected with her, before I was married to her? — If ever I was respected 
witli her, or she with me, let not your worship think me the poor duke's 
officer : — Prove this, thou wicked Hannibal, or I'll have mine action of batter^' 
on thee. 

EscAL. If he took you a box o' the ear, you might have your action of 
slander too. 

III. 

" The manner in which, in Act III. Scene 3, Escalus desig- 
nates and talks of Angelo, with whom he was joined in com- 
mission as JudgCj is/' continues Lord Campbell, '' so like the 
manner in which one English judge designates and talks of 
another, that it countenances the supposition that Shakespeare 
may often, as an attorney's clerk, have been in the presence of 
English judges :" — 

EscAl. Provost, my hrother Angela will not be altered ; Claudio must die 

to-morrow If my hrother wrought by my pity, it should not be so 

with him I have laboured for the poor gentlemen to the extremest 

shore of my modesty ; but my hrother justice have I found so severe, that he 
hath forced me to tell him that he is indeed Justice. 

IV. 

" Even when Shakespeare is most solemn and sublime," adds 
his lordship, "his sentiments and language seem sometimes to 
take a tinge from his early pursuits, as may be observed from a 
beautiful passage in this play j which, lest I should be thought 
guilty of irreverence, I do not venture to comment upon :" — 

IsAB. {to Angelo.) Alas ! alas ! 

Why, all the souls that were, were forfeit once ; 
And He that might the 'vantage best have took, 
« Found out the remedy. How would you be, 

If He, which is the top of judgment, should 
But judge you as yoii, are ? Oh, think on that, 
And mercy then will breathe within your lips, 
Like man new made ! 

' I do not think that Lord Chief Justice Campbell has done 
himself much credit, by citing the above four cases in proof of 
Shakespeare's law learning.^ 

3 Lord Campbell, pp. 42, 43. 



I04 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

But the great figure in the play — the figure which stands in 
towering dignity and purity and beauty above all others^ and 
above all other of Shakespeare^s women^ is Isabella, the nun, or 
rather, the young novitiate of the convent of St. Clare. It 
seems to me, that if Shakespeare had any method, beyond the 
mere usual waywardness of his plots, it was his object in this 
play to develope, through the characters of Isabella and the Duke,* 
his views of the beautiful philosophy of the Catholic religion. 
In his portraiture of the villain Angelo, he, on the other hand, 
paints a perfect picture of Puritan hypocrisy. 

Lord Angelo is precise ; 
Stands at a guard with envy ; scarce confesses 
That his blood flows, or that his appetite 
Is more to bread than stone. 

And this oblique sarcasm against the Puritans is again re- 
peated, says Dr. Farmer, in the Constable^s account of Master 
Proth and the Clown : " Precise villains they are, that I am 
sure of; and void of all profanation in the world that good 
Christians ought to have.''^ 

The opening of " Measure for Measure " finds Isabella under- 
going her religious probation in that tranquil half-way house upon 
the road to heaven, the convent of St. Clare. She is conversing 
sweetly with the nuns upon the sacred mysteries that are just 
unfolding to her virgin comprehension, when she is suddenly 
interrupted by a rude clangour at the convent gate. This comes 
to summon her back to the stirring world in order that she may 
make solicitation of the newly-appointed savage deputy for her 
brother^s life. She cannot choose but yield to the appeal ; but 
going out, never comes back, having learned "that in the world 
may be found a discipline more strict, more awful than the 
discipline of the convent ; having also learned that the world has 
need of her ; that her life is still a consecrated life, and that the 
vital energy of her heart can exert and augment itself as Duchess 
of Vienna more fully than in conventual seclusion.'"' * In speak- 
ing of " Measure for Measure,'^ Drake says . that " the great 
charm of the play springs from the lovely example of female 
excellence exhibited in the person of Isabella. Piety, spotless 
purity, tenderness combined with firmness, and an eloquence 

^ Dowden's "Mind and Art of Shakespeare," pp. 83, 84. 



*' Measure for Measure." 105 

most persuasive, unite to render her singularly interesting- and 
attractive. O'est un ange de hcmiere sous VTiumble habit d'une 
novice. To save the life of her brother she hastens to quit the 
peaceful seclusion of her convent, and moves amid the votaries of 
corruption and hypocrisy, amid the sensual, the vulgar, and the 
profligate, as a being of a higher order, as a ministering spirit 
from the throne of grace/' 

Knight, in alluding to Isabella, says that " the foundation of 
her character is religion. Out of that sacred source springs 
her humility — her purity, which cannot understand oblique pur- 
poses and suggestions — ^her courage — her passionate indignation 
at the selfishness of her brother, who would have sacrificed her to 
attain his own safety. It is in the conception of such a character 
that we see the transcendant superiority of Shakespeare over 
other dramatists. The ' thing enskied and sainted ' was not for 
any of his greatest contemporaries to conceive and delineate.''^ 

And yet, Shakespeare made this female masterpiece — this 
religious paragon, this beau ideal of his genius — a nun; and 
while escorting her with solemn dignity throughout her scenes, 
he commands silence and bent heads for every allusion to the 
Eomish faith. In comment upon this fact, it may be remarked, 
that if a mere playwright might venture upon such developments 
of Catholic saintliness in the midst of a Puritan age, Bacon could 
hardly have lost favour with Elizabeth or James by openly 
claiming the authorship of the Shakespeare plays himself. 



io6 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View, 



CHAPTER XII. 

^'comedy op errors/' 

The date of this play is put down in Furnivars Table at 
1589-91, but it was not published until the appearance of the 
folio of 1623. It is mentioned in a work by Francis Meares, in 
1598j and was performed at Court in December, 1604, before 
King James. 

The story of the piece is taken from the Mensechmi of Plautus, 
the old Roman dramatist, though it differs from that production 
to the extent of adding to the two twin Antipholuses of the 
Roman play, two twin Dromios also. 

It has by this time been observed by the reader that Shake- 
speare exhibits a perfect indifference about the origin of the plots 
of his plays. He adopts without scruple any fable he can lay his 
hands upon, and appears to be governed entirely in the composi- 
tion of his pieces by the aim of making a production which will 
be amusing to his audiences. In fact, he clearly disdains narra- 
tive as the lowest form of composition, and seems always willing 
to allow any one to help him to his story. It is his task to raise the 
structure after others have sunk the foundation ; to enlarge it by 
the expanding pressure of his mind, and embroider the surface 
with his matchless imagery. Even a ballad was quite enough 
for him to build upon ; for there was no end either to the re- 
sources of his invention or the productiveness of his fancy. 
Indeed, every writer of any imagination knows for himself that a 
tale once begun may be reeled off with undisturbed facility ; or, to 
use Shakespeare's own language in Falstaff, may be continued on 
" as easy as lying.'' Witness, in evidence of this, the prolific 
romance department in the thousand and one of modern weekly 
newspapers. 

The " Comedv of Errors " bears evidence of having been 



" Coniedy of Er7^orsJ' 107 

hastily and carelessly written. It is full of anachronisms and of 
geographical contradictions ; and though laid in the old Roman 
days it has allusions to America and the Indies ; while one of 
the Dromios calls his female kitchen-friends in the city of 
Ephesus by the broad Eixglish, Irish, and Scotch names of 
" Maud^ Bridget, Marian, Cicely, Gillian, and Jen/^ 

The plot of the play and its staring absurdities make an abso- 
lute mockery of the fine speculations which the German critics 
are so fond of indulging in, as to the profound theories which 
Shakespeare always intended to convey through his plays, for the 
instruction of mankind. Here we have him presenting two 
couples of men, who have been living apart from each other in 
strange countries for nearly thirty years — who, if they do look 
alike, must necessarily bear themselves differently, talk differently, 
walk differently, and dress differently — and these, he asks us to 
believe, succeed in deceiving everybody as to their separate iden- 
tities and even in baffling the familiar scrutiny of their wives and 
mistresses! In my opinion, a writer who is thus careless ofcon- 
gruities, and who presents his themes without any regard to the 
possibilities of human belief, is not engaged in the task of giving 
abstruse lessons in philosophy. The legal lore of the play, more- 
over, however much it may impress Lord Chief Justice Campbell, 
seems to me to be actually law run mad. Creditors commence 
process against debtors before constables, in the street, by word of 
mouth, and the constable, upon receiving a money fee from the 
plaintiff, issues process of arrest out of hand, and discharges the 
debtor with equal readiness upon having the judgment satisfied 
with cash — thus excusing all function from the court. 

Act IV. Scene 1. — EpJiesus, 
Antipholtjs and Deomio, of Ephesus ; a Merchant; Angelo, a Gold- 
smith; and an Officer. 
Meech. {fointing to Antipholus of E., ^ohom he cliarges with owing 
him the price of a gold chain). 

Well, officer, arrest him at my suit. 
Off, I do ; and charge you in the duke's name, to obey me. 
Ang. This touches me in reputation : — 

Either consent to pay this sum to me, 
Or I attach you hy this officer. 
Ant. E. Consent to pay thee that I never had ! 
Ai-rest me, foolish fellow, if thou dar'st. 
Akg. Here is thy fee ; arrest him, officer ; — 



io8 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

I would not spare my brother in this case, 

If he should scorn me so apparently. 
Off. I do arrest you, sir ; you hear the suit. 
Ant. E. I do ohey they, till I give thee bail : — 

But, sirrah, you shall buy this sport as dear 

As all the metal in your shop will answer. 
Ang. Sir, sir, I shall have law in Ephesus, 

To your notorious shame, I doubt it not. 

Nevertheless, Lord Chief Justice Campbell discovers several 
evidences in this plaj of Shakespeare's knowledge of law. He finds, 
in Act II. Scene 3, another allusion to ^^ fine and recovery; '' in 
Act IV. Scene 2, he detects more law in Dromio's description of 
the above arrest of his master in his use of the phrases of " be/ore 
the jiulgment," and ^' rested on tlie case'' further explaining that 
he has been arrested on a lond; yet, " not on a bond, but on a 
stronger thing : a chain, a chain ! '' Now listen to Lord 
Campbell : — 

" Here," says his lordship, " we have a most circumstantial 
and graphic account of an English arrest on mesne process ["be- 
fore judgment "^ , in an action on the case, for the price of a gold 
chain by a sheriff •'s officer or bum-bailiff in his buff costume, and 
carrying his prisoner to a sponging-house — a spectacle which 
might often have been seen by an attorney's clerk.'-' 

I hope I may be excused for thinking that Lord Campbell does 
not do himself much credit by this specimen of his critical 
acumen. He doubtless correctly describes the nature of an 
arrest on mesne process, but there is no evidence that Shakespeare 
understood all the intricacies of that process, because one of his 
clowns utters a surface reference to it through the use of a cur- 
rent phrase, anymore than there would be in supposing a man to 
know the geological strata of Mount Caucasus because he mentions 
it by name. But one thing is certain (however far these technical 
expressions may be construed to go), that there is not virtue 
enough in these mere terms of law to overbalance the monstrous 
absurdity of allowing tipstaves to issue process for debt, and then 
to hold court for the purpose of taking bail in the streets. I 
cannot bring myself to believe that Lord Bacon, or any other 
lawyer, who knew the philosophy of law, would have built any 
story upon such a ridiculous foundation as this. 

And I may add that neither could Bacon, as an experienced 
traveller and scholar, have made the* geographical mistakes with 



" Comedy of Errors ^ 109 

which this and other of the Shakespeare plays abound. Certainly 
his ehronolog-y would not have been so bad as to have alluded to 
rapiers^ striking* clocks^ and ducats, as having been in use in the 
early days of Ephesus. 

There is but little more for me to notice in this play as bearing 
upon my objective points^ further than that^ the epithet 0^ peasant 
is twice opprobriously used in it, as likewise is the term of 
slave, in application to ordinary honest serving-men. I must not 
omit to observe, however, that the Roman Catholic religion is 
most gracefully introduced towards the close of the play, in the 
person of an abbess, who gives sanctuary to one of the heroes of 
the piece, and refuses to release him at the clamour of his wife, 
even when threatened with the power of the duke. 

Ade. Then let your servaints bring my husband forth. 
Abb. Neither ; he took this place for sanctuary, 

And it shall privilege him from your hands, 

Till I have brought him to his wits again, 

Or lose my labour in assaying it. 
Ade. I will attend my husband, be his nurse. 

Diet his sickness, for it is my office. 

And will have no attorney but myself; 

And therefore let me have him home with me. 
Abb. Be patient : for I will not let him stir. 

Till I have used the approved means I have. 

With wholesome syrups, drugs, and holy prayers. 

To make of him a formal man again : 

It is a'hranch and parcel of mine oath, 

A charitable duty of my order ; 

Therefore depart, and leave him here with me. 
Ade. I will not hence, and leave my husband here : 

And ill it doth beseem your holiness, 

To separate the husband and the wife. 
Abb. Be quiet, and depart, thou shalt not have him. \_lExit Abbess. 

By-and-by the duke and his train arrive, whereupon the esti- 
mable abbess comes out of the abbey with Antipholus of Ephesus. 
But Shakespeare continues her as mistress of the situation, and 
thus winds up the main action of the piece : — 

Abbess. Eenowned duke, vouchsafe to take the pains 
To go with us into the abbey here. 
And hear at large discoursed all our fortunes : 
And all that are assembled at this place, 
That by this sympathized one day's error 
Have sufFer'd wrong, go, keep us company, 
And we shall make full satisfaction. 



I lo Shakespeare, from an Anie7dcan Point of View, 

" MIDSUMMER NIGHT^S DEE AM /^ 

The production of this eharming- comedy is variously assig-ned 
by Drake, Malone, and Schlegel to 1593, 1593, and 1594; but 
Elze, more accurately, as I think, places it in the spring- of 1590, 
when Shakespeare was twenty-six years of age, affirming that it 
was written as a masque or revel to be performed at the wedding 
of the Earl of Essex with Lady Sidney. This was a common 
custom with the aristocracy of Elizabeth^'s time, and the follow- 
ing closing lines of Oberon, the fairy king, in compliment to 
the marriage of Theseus and Hyppolita, would seem to confirm 
the idea that it was written by our poet to grace some marriage 
feast : — 

BEEON. Now, until the break of day, 

Through this house each fairy stray. 

To the best bride-bed will we, 

Which by us shall blessed be ; 

And the issue there create, 

Ever shall be fortunate. 

So shall all the couples three 

Ever true in loving be ; 

And the blots of nature's hand 

Shall not in their issue stand; 

Never mole, hare-lip, or scar. 

Nor mark prodigious, such as are 

Despised in nativity. 

Shall upon their children be. — 

With this field dew consecrate, 

Every fairy take his gait ; 

And each several chamber bless. 

Through this palace with sweet peace : 

Ever shall in safety rest, 

And the owner of it blest. 

The first thing which appears in this' play touching the points 
of our inquiry, is a legal expression that falls from the father of 
Hermia in the first scene of the first act, when he appeals to the 
duke to require his daughter to obey his wishes by marrying 
with Demetrius, or else to grant against her, for the sin of dis- 
obedience, — 

" Her death, according to our law. 
Immediately provided in that case." 

Both Steevens and Lord Campbell receive this expression as a 



" Midsummer NighSs Dream!' 1 1 1 

proof that Shakespeare had served in an attorney's ofSce ; and 
the latter remarks that " there is certainly no nearer approach in 
heroic measure to the technical language of an indictment.^' 

This legal incident is then immediately followed by the follow- 
ing reverent allusion to the Eoman Catholic religion,, though 
the scene of the play is laid in early Greece. The duke, Theseus, 
thus impresses upon Hermia the necessity of conforming to her 
father's will : — 

Theseus. Either to die the death, or to abjure 
Eor ever the society of men. 
Therefore, fair Hermia, question your desires, 
Know of your youth, examine well your blood. 
Whether, if you yield not to your father's choice, 
Tom. can enjoy the livery of a nun; 
For aye to he in shady cloister mew'd. 
To live a harren sister all your life. 
Chanting faint hymns to the cold, fruitless moon. 
Thrice blessed they, that master so their Hood 
To undergo such maiden pilgrimage ; 
But earthlier happy is the rose distill'd. 
Than that which, withering on the virgin thorn, 
Grows, lives, and dies in single blessedness. 

Hee. So will I grow, so live, so die, my lord, 

Ere I will yield my virgin patent up 
Unto his lordship. 

One cannot help remarking here that a threatened imprison- 
ment of Hermia for life in a state prison would have been fully 
adequate to all the necessities of the scene, instead of bringing 
in a nunnery. So also would a prison have equally served the 
purposes of the last act of the " Comedy of Errors," in place of 
the abbey ; but Shakespeare evidently wanted to patronize the 
Catholic religion. 

The next evidence we have bearing on our points are the lines at 
the conclusion of the same act, which show Shakespeare's intimate 
knowledge of stage business ; first, in Snug's inquiry if the 
lion's part has been written out (i. e. copied) for him ; and next, 
in the arrangements made by Bottom and his mates in the dis- 
tribution of the written (copied) parts for the actors ; likewise in 
the provision of a " bill of properties " needed for their play 
before the duke. All of this throws Bacon out of our considera- 
tion, so far as this composition is concerned, and at the same 



112 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

time disposes of the fiction of ShakespeaiVs '^ fair round hand/' 
which the players reported of his manuscript, and which, accord- 
ing to many of his critics, showed that his mind flowed with 
such a smooth felicity "that he never blotted out a line/'' This 
idea serves the purposes of the Baconians by making it appear 
that Shakespeare merely copied out the manuscript of Bacon. 

The course of our scrutiny now brings us to the first distinct 
illustrations of Shakespeare's low estimation of the mechanical 
and labouring classes — the classes which, in the United States, 
are justly esteemed to be not the least honest, virtuous, and 
patriotic of the community. This tendency of our poet appears 
in the underplot of Bottom and the Athenian mechanics who 
have been selected to perform before the newly-married pair on 
the classical subject of Pyramus and Thisbe, upon the calculation 
that their ignorance would certainly burlesque it. We have 
already had an introduction to these simple-hearted fellows in 
the second scene of the first act, on the occasion of the distribu- 
tion of their several dramatic parts ; and we now find them, at 
the opening of the third act, ready for rehearsal, in the wood, 
near where the fairies are lying around asleep. While the 
working men are thus engaged. Puck, the fairy messenger and 
factotum, enters from behind, and in a tone of contempt which 
must have been graciously appreciated by Essex and the rest of 
the Elizabethan company, Master Puck thus characterizes the 
hard-handed men who are doing their best to please their lordly 
patrons : — 

Puck. W7mt hempen homespuns have we sicaggering here, 
So near tlie cradle of the fairy queen ? 

Puck, in the next scene, reports to Oberon the laughable 
metamorphosis he had made of Bottom, and his still more ludi- 
crous exploit of having caused Titania to fall in love with 
him : — 

Puck. My mistress with a monster is in love. 
Near to her close and consecrated bower, 
While she was in' her dull and sleeping hour, 
A crew of patches, rude mechanicals. 
That work for bread upon Athenian stalls, 
Were met together to rehearse a play. 
Intended for great Theseus' nuptial day. 
The shallow'' d thich-skin of that barren sort. 



" Midsummer Night's Dreamy 113 

Who Pyramus presented, in their sport 
Forsook his scene, and enter'd in a hrake : 
When I did him at this advantage take, 
An ass's nowl I fixed on his head. 

Puck continues his report, as to the way he had carried out 
Oberon's other orders concerning Demetrius and Helena; but he 
changes his contemptuous tone at once to one of severe respect 
when he refers to the ladies and gentlemen of the story. This 
treatment of the case by Shakespeare is explainable either through 
the spontaneous servility he always shows to rank and birth, or, 
perhaps, to the more excusable object of having to cater to 
audiences of a people who are born worshippers of wealth and 
station, and the masses of whom to this day seem to like nothing 
so much as to look upon a lord. 



1 14 Shakespeare^ from an American Point of View. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

''the merchant of VENICE." ' 

f 

This remarkable play was produced in 1596, and publlsliedj for 
the first time, in the year 1600. It was regarded as a comedy, 
and probably was written as such, the character of Shylock being 
originally consigned to a low comedian. The enjoyment and 
laughter of its audiences were obtained consequently from the 
sufferings and discomfiture of the detested Jew. In degree, 
however, as the prejudice against the Hebrews lifted, " The 
Merchant of Venice '' gradually assumed the title of " a play," 
and latterly, the role of Shylock has been entrusted only to the 
leading tragedians of the day. There is a world of moral in 
these simple facts. 

The plot, or story, has two leading incidents, both of which 
Shakespeare, with his contempt for mere narration, has taken 
bodily from foreign sources. The main action of the play is 
devoted to the fable of " Antonio the Merchant," borrowing a 
sum of money from Shylock, the Jew, to help his penniless 
friend, Bassanio, to inveigle the affections of a lady of exceeding 
wealth. The Jew, who has been much abused by Antonio for 
taking usury, proposes to take no interest from the borrower, 
either in order to recover his good will, or in the event of his 
failing to pay, to catch him at a deadly disadvantage. Indeed, he 
asks no security, except such as is to be found in the agree- 
ment, but consents to accept, in lieu of the loan, a pound 
of Antonio^s flesh, to be cut by the creditor from off his breast. 
This foolish fiction, so repugnant to all the philosophy of 
law, is taken from an Italian novel, published by Giovanni, 
two hundred years before Shakespeare's time ; while the secon- 
dary plot, in which the lady courted by Bassanio is subjected 
to the choice of any lover who is lucky enough to guess one out 
of three caskets that contains her picture, is, if possible, more 
trivial still. But this is the kind of thing which Shakespeare 



" The Merchant of Venice^ 115 

would constantly perpetrate in the matter of his plots ; and we are 
therefore justified in the conclusion^ that his first and controlling 
object was, not to inculcate intricate lessons of philosophy and 
morals, as many of his biographers assume, but to draw full 
houses and to please good-natured audiences. Indeed, could 
Shakespeare be roused from his " paved bed " for a few minutes, 
to listen to the profound theories ascribed to him by the German 
commentators upon such plays as " The Merchant of Venice, ^^ 
" Two Gentlemen of Verona,^-' and '^ The Comedy of Errors," his 
astonished shade, would, probably, be glad to shrink back into 
its marble prison, in *order to escape the fine but confusing 
theories about him with which the world has been teased during: 
the last fifty years. 

In fact, when I first began the research necessary to this 
inquiry, I was staggered by the amount of compound insight 
assumed by the German critics as to Shakespeare's drift and in- 
culcations. So busily had these literary beavers worked at the 
text of the immortal bard, that they usually allotted to him the 
credit of six or seven difiPerent profundities of purpose in the 
story of one play, or even in the development of a single 
character. This complicated cleverness not only amazed but for 
a time discouraged me, and I almost sank under a sense of 
hopeless incapacity at being able to understand one-fifth of what 
they said. Finally, however, I determined to go on, relying for 
my success upon the resolution with which I had set out — not to 
make this inquiry an argument for one point or another, either of 
religion, democracy, or law. On the contrary, to keep it as far 
as I could, rigidly to its true character of an examination, in 
which everything bearing upon the inquiry, whether in favour of 
Bacon or of Shakespeare, should be heard. I believe I have been 
faithful to this purpose ; but if the facts, thus far, have all borne 
oneway, and, if my intelligence has been obliged to exercise 
the common privilege of judgment, the cumulation of authority 
must not be charged to any favouritism on my part. 

Now, as to the German exploitation of the compound philoso- 
phical inculcations of our poet, let us look at the simple sketch 
of the three branches of '' The Merchant of Venice " (which, be 
it remembered, Shakespeare took bodily from other minds), and 
see what some of these Germans impute to Ms mind in simply 
reproducing the story in an English form. 



1 16 Shakespeare^ from an American Point of View. 

Firsts let us read the following account of the original 
sources of Shakespeare^s play, as it appears in Rowers edition of 
our poet's dramatic works : — 

" The plot of ' The Merchant of Venice ' comprises the chief circumstance 
of the bond, the auxiliary incident of the caskets, and the sub-story of 
Lorenzo and Jessica. The story of the bond is of oriental origin ; it first 
appeared in Europe, in a work by Giovanni, a Florentine novelist, from which 
our dramatist, though indirectly, perhaps, has taken his materials. 

" Giannetto obtains permission from his godfather, Ansaldo, to travel to 
Alexandria, but changes his mind, in the hopes of gaining a lady of great 
wealth and beauty at Belmont, whose hand is proffered to him who can obtain 
a premature enjoyment of the connubial rites.' Overpowered with sleep, 
occasioned by a narcotic given him in his wine, he fails in his enterprise, and 
his vessel and cargo, which he had wagered on his success, are forfeited. 
Another ship is equipped, which he loses in a second attempt ; and a third is 
made at the expense of his godfather, who borrows ten thousand ducats from 
a Jew, on condition that if they are not returned by a stipulated day,' the 
lender may cut a pound of flesh from any part of the debtor's body. G-ian- 
netto obtains the lady ; but lost in delight with his bride, forgets Ansaldo's 
bond till the very day it becomes due. He hastens to Venice, but the time 
is past, and the usurer refuses ten times the value of his bond. Gian- 
netto's lady arrives at this crisis, and causes it to be announced that she 
can resolve difiicult questions in law. Consulted in the case of Ansaldo, she 
decides that the Jew must have his pound of flesh ; but that he shall lose his 
head if he cuts more or less, or draws one drop of blood. The Jew relinquishes 
his demand, and Ansaldo is released. The bride will not receive money as a 
recompense, but desires Giannetto's wedding-ring, which he gives her. 
The lady arrives at home before her husband, and immediately asks for her 
ring, which he being unable to produce, she upbraids him with having given 
it to some mistress. At length, Giannetto's sorrow afi'ects his wife, and 
she explains the particulars of her journey and disguise. AH this is closely 
followed by Shakespeare ; but the improbability of a lady's possessing so much 
legal acumen is skilfully removed by making her consult an eminent lawyer, 
and act under his advice. 

" The choosing of the caskets is borrowed from the English Gesta Eoma- 
norum, a collection of tales much esteemed by our ancestors. Three vessels 
were placed before the king of Apulia's daughter for her choice. The first 
was of pure gold, and filled with dead men's bones ; on it was this inscrip- 
tion: Who chooses me shall find ivhat he deserves. The second was of silver, 
and thus inscribed : W ho chooses me shall find lohat nature covets. It was 
filled with earth. The third vessel was of lead, but filled with precious 
stones. It had this inscription : Who chooses me shall find xohat God has 
placed. The princess, after praying for assistance, chooses the leaden vessel. 
The emperor applauds her wisdom, and she is united to his son.'' 

Here are the two branches of the main story almost completely; 



** The Merchant of Venice^ 117 

so whatever that dory inculcates, must be credited to Giovanni, 
the Florentine originator, and not to Shakespeare. But hear 
what the German commentators say : — Karl Elze, who is a 
doctor of philosophy, remarks, " that it might be supposed critics 
would long since have come to a unanimous and generally 
recognized aesthetic estimate of such a much-read play as ' The 
Merchant of Venice,^ standing, as it does, on the repertoire of 
almost every stage ; however, the conceptions of the fundamental 
idea, the opinions concerning the composition and the criticism 
of the characters, differ here more widely than in the case of 
most of the other works of our poet/^ Gervinius finds " a proof 
of the wealth and many-sidedness of Shakespeare's works to lie 
in the variety of the points of view from which they may be 
regarded, as it is not without a certain degree and appearance of 
correctness that several opinions on one and the same play may 
be formed." According to Horn, " The Merchant of Venice " 
is based upon a truly grand, profound, extremely delightful, nay, 
an almost blessed idea, upon a purely Christian, conciliatory love, 
and upon meditating mercy as opposed to the law, and to what 
is called right." Surely, this must be very fine, if one could 
only understand it. Ulrici, in the very best of Latin, finds the 
ideal of unity in the saying, " Summtimjus, summa injuria ; " that 
is to say, the rigour of the law is the very rigour of oppression, 
and E-otscher so modifies this view, that he considers the inner- 
most spirit of the play evidently to be " the dialectics of abstract 
right." He oracularly adds, " By the expression of abstract 
right, we mean that development by which abstract right by 
itself, that is, by its own nature, discovers its own worthlessness, 
consequently destroys itself where it seeks to govern human life, 
and to assert itself as an absolute power.''' This logic is so 
superbly intricate that it seems out of place anywhere but in the 
mouth of the hair-splitting first grave-digger in Hamlet. Elze 
thinks, that " the centre of gravity of the play lies in Portia's 
address to Mercy," ^ and Gervinius comes again, with- the idea 
that, ''in 'The Merchant of Venice/ the poet wished to delineate 
man's relation to property." He profoundly adds that "to 
prove a man's relation to property, to money, is to weigh his 
inner value by a most subtle balance, and to separate that which 

1 " Essays on Shakespeare," by Karl Elze, pp. 67, 68, 69. London, Mac- 
millan and Co., 1874. 



1 1 8 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

clings to unessential and external things from that wliich, in its 
inner nature, places itself in relation to a higher destiny/' 
Surely Christy's Minstrels never did anything better than this ! 
Hebler, objecting to the idea of Gervinius, that " money, the god 
of the world, is the symbol of appearance and of everything ex- 
ternal,'' admits, nevertheless, that the fundamental idea of the 
piece " lies in the struggle against appearance and of everything 
external," but he confesses that it is '' by no means only repre- 
sented symbolically by the caskets, but in a very plastic and 
classical manner/^ " According to this conception," says another, 
" Bassanio's speech, when selecting the casket, contains the key 
to the poem, and it cannot be denied that it possesses as great 
a claim to this distinction as Portia's apotheosis to Mercy." 
Kreysig, lastly, " recognizes the impossibility of comprising the 
numerous diverse and to some extent opposite elements of the 
play under one fundamental idea," and concludes by saying, for the 
benefit of whom it may concern, " that strong feeling, together 
with clear and sure reasoning, balance each other in the character 
pervading the whole/' All of which profound and eloquent 
encomiums being due equally to Giovanni and to Shakespeare so 
far as the story is concerned, and really more to the former than 
to the latter, bring me to the same state of complication which 
disturbed the mind of the celebrated negro philosopher when 
endeavouring to solve the obvious difficulties of the problem of a 
horse dying on a man's hands. 

It seems to me that if Shakespeare had any leading motive 
in this play, outside of making a success in the way of money, 
it was to cater to the common hatred of the Jews, which burned 
so fiercely in the Elizabethan age, and reached its intensest fury 
amono" the devotees of the Romish faith. And here let us not 
overlook the fact that, according to the doctrines of the Catholic 
Church, " it was a grievous sin to take interest on money : nay, 
usury was a crime amenable to the ecclesiastical tribunals, and 
Pope Clement V. declared it heresy to vindicate it. The 
subsequent Popes, Pius V. and Sextus V. (1585 — 1590), even 
Benedict XIV., as late as the middle of the eighteenth century, 
confirmed this doctrine. The outcast Jew alone was permitted 
by the law to take interest. And the Protestant Reformers, on 
this point, adopted the doctrine of the Catholic Church." ^ In 
2 Karl Elze's Essay on Shakespeare, p. 86. 



** The Merchant of Venice y 119 

the Venetian period of whicli Shakespeare writes, " the Jews 
were cooped up in their ghettos, and marked by a conspicuous 
dress like hangmen and prostitutes. All branches of business 
were prohibited to them, except those of barter and dealings in 
money, and this sole source of acquiring the means of existence 
was branded by the name of usury /^ Here we have the key to 
the loathing and contumely put upon Shylock by Antonio, who, 
in a spirit even meaner than any exhibited by the Hebrew, was 
guilty of the gross blackguardism of kicking liim and of spitting 
upon his beard ; nay, was shameless enough to boast to his face 
that he might again, through mere caprice and wantonness, 
repeat that outrageous conduct. No wonder that Shylock wished 
to " catch him on the hip/^ In further proof that Shakespeare 
meant to cater to the common prejudice of his audiences against 
the Jews, and doubtless felt it, he permitted Shylock to be 
represented at his own theatre, with red hair and a long false 
nose, in order that the audience might not sympathize with his 
tremendous sufferings, when, after losing his daughter and his 
fortune, he was ruthlessly required even to abjure his faith. 

This portraiture of Shylock continued down to the latter end 
of the seventeenth century, and reached its climax when Lord 
Lansdowne, in a version of the play called '^^The Jew of 
Venice,^^ introduced a scene of buffoonery for Shylock, at the 
feast given by Bassanio. In this piece Shylock is represented as 
the butt of the company, and also as the jester of the table for 
the amusement of the Christian guests. " This misconception 
of the character of Shylock," says the writer to the introduction 
of French's edition of the play, '^ prevailed until Macklin restored 
the original text to the stage. This actor's admirable performance 
of the character, at once so new and striking, drew from Pope 
the well-known eulogium, — 

' This is tlie Jew 
That Shakespeare drew.' " 

Nevertheless, Shakespeare permitted Shylock to be delineated 
as a- buffoon at his own theatre because, undoubtedly, that form 
of caricature both pleased and paid. This gives us a singular 
insight into the worldliness and facility of Shakespeare's money- 
making nature ; for it is impossible to read his delineation of this 
tremendous character, and dwell upon the mighty investiture of 



1 20 Shakespeare^ from an American Point of View. 

thought^ force, and passion witli wliicli he consecrated it to tragic 
elevation, without conceiving the pain it must have caused him 
to yield the great portraiture to comic hands — to see his ideal of 
Judaism, liis well-studied representative of an inflexible race, 
which no wrongs nor contumelies could subvert, speaking in the 
mirth-provoking tones of a Listen or a Stuart E-obson. 

It is clear to me that the consideration for the success of the 
piece which induced Shakespeare, as a manager, to permit 
Shylock to be burlesqued and perverted to the hands of a low 
comedian, could not have operated upon the mind of such a man 
as Bacon. On the contrary, it was purely the consideration of a 
playwright, and not the intellectual surrender of one who was 
either wholly a poet or wholly a philosopher. Shakespeare loved 
money more, apparently, than he loved art ; and, in despite of 
the fine-spun theories of his biographers and the bubbles of the 
Eesthetic Germans, I cannot resist the conviction that he wrote, 
and especially in this play of '^ The Merchant of Venice,'^ for 
pounds instead of principles, and never once bothered his mind 
about inculcating moral lessons to mankind. I believe, more- 
over, that he had but a limited ambition for the glory of a poet. 
Though his brain, when at work, would flame with the genius of 
a demi-god, his prevailing elements were earthy, and the coarser 
portion of his nature steered his work. The constant thirst which 
he had for wealth is exhibited by his early acquisition of houses 
and lands in London and in Stratford ; and the firmness of his 
grip on his accumulations is manifested by the paltry suits he 
brought to recover debt — one being for thirty-five shillings and 
tenpence — after he had come to the enjoyment of an income 
which would now be equal to twenty thousand dollars a year. 
Indeed, if he had been governed solely by the elevation of a poet, 
he could not have submitted his masterly and vigorous ideal of 
the revengeful Jew to the degrading role of a jack-pudding ; 
while, if it ever entered into his head to inculcate moral lessons by 
his plays, he would not have forgiven Proteus and Angelo, or have 
written that dehberate essay in favour of free love known as 
" Troilus and Cressida.'*'' In fact, Shakespeai^e had no morals, 
so to speak ; and what he exhibits in that way were just as meagre 
as any writer would be allowed to have, who was obliged to submit 
his views to the instinctive goodness of the big-hearted multitude. 

Witness this very play. First, we have the blackguard Antonio 



" The Merchant of Venice^ 1 2 1 

" footing-'^ an unoffending man and spitting into his beard because 
he differed with him in religious belief, or because he followed a 
way of business (within the protection of the law) which he did 
not like. And this ruffian is the idol of our poet's admiration. 
Next comes Bassanio, an unprincipled, penniless adventurer, a 
mere tavern spendthrift and carouser, who borrows money that 
he may cheat a wealthy maiden of her dower. And this fine figure 
is Shakespeare's second pet! Then follow those poodles and 
parasites, Gratiano, Salarino, Salerio, Salanio, and Lorenzo, the 
first willing to put up with Portia's waiting-maid, Nerissa, be- 
cause there is money '•' all round" in Portia's neighbourhood, and 
the latter inducing a little girl to rob her father's house, which 
contemptible crime meets with the unlimited approval and active 
aid of the whole gang, from Antonio down. If these are Shake- 
speare's preferred representatives of Christian morals, they appear 
in poor contrast to Shylock and Tubal, as revengeful as he makes 
the first to be. The moral of the caskets is neither better nor a 
whit more wise; for it simply advocates the system of lottery 
against that of judgment. Moreover, it cannot be believed 
that, among the swarm of suitors who, first and last, had been 
at Portia's residence, not one had hit upon the leaden casket 
until Bassanio took his turn.' Neither can any one credit, for 

3 Pbince of Moeocco. Why, that's the lady : all the world desires her : 
From the four corners of the earth they come, 
To kiss this shrine, this mortal breathing saint. 
The Hyrcanian deserts, and the vasty wilds 
Of wild Arabia, are as through-fares now, 
For princes to come view fair Portia : 
The wat'ry kingdom, whose ambitious head 
Spits in the face of heaven, is no bar 
To stop the foreign spirits ; but they come, 
As o'er a brook, to see fair Portia. 

Act II. Scene 7. 
PoETiA {to Bassanio, as lie is about choosing from the casJcets). 
Before you venture for me. I could teach you, 
How to choose right, but then I am forsworn ; 
So will I never be ; so may you miss me : 
But if you do, you'll make me wish a sin. 
That I had been forsworn. Beshrew your eyes, 
They have o'erlook'd me, and divided me ; 
One half of me is yours, the other half yours, — 
Mine own, I would say ; but if mine, then yours, 



122 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

an instant, the pretence that so keen a girl as Portia would not 
have jockeyed her foolish father's will by giving her favourite, 
Bassanio, a wink. Every one, therefore, must agree that the 
problem of the caskets was worked out in its very weakest way 
by deciding against the Princes of Morocco and Arragon, who 
had something to risk, in favour of a beggarly sharper who had 
nothing to lose ; and who was accessory, both before and after 
the fact, to the robbery of the Jew's house. 

This seems to be harsh language, audit doubtless jars with the 
settled notions of many a worshipper of Shakespeare's heroes j 
but these are the portraits of our poet's very words. The 
Antonio party, with the exception possibly of Antonio himself, 
are profligates and spendthrifts, with, as is evident from Bassanio's 
pecuniary straits, scarcely a dollar among them. As for Bassanio, 
he has not only " disabled his estate," by " showing a more 
swelling port than his faint means would grant continuance," 
but he is hopelessly in debt on all sides, and most largely to 
Antonio, for loans obtained to float his pleasures. Nevertheless, 
he goes to him again, and, like all habitual borrowers, tempts 
him with the hope of getting his money back, if he will only 
help him with a little more. His new aim on this occasion is a 
wealthy lady who has made eyes at him,^ but whom he does not 

And so all yours : ! these naughty times 
Put hars between the owners and their rights ; 
And so, though yours, not yours. 

Act III. Scene 2. 

Bassanio then chooses the leaden casket and wins the lady, whereupon, 
frankly resigning, she thus describes herself: — 

But the full sum of me 
Is sum of something ; which, to term in gross, 
Is an unlesson'd girl, unschool'd, unpractised : 
Happy in this, she is not yet so old 
But she may learn ; and happier than this. 
She is not bred so dull but she can learn ; 
Happiest of all, is, that her gentle spirit 
Commits itself to yours to be directed. 
As from her lord, her governor, her king. 

* Bassanio. In Belmont is a lady richly left. 

And she is fair, and fairer than that word. 

Of wondrous virtues. Sometimes, from her e^es 

I did receive fair speechless messages. 



" The Merchant of Venice T 123 

pretend to love — ^his sole object being- " to get clear of all the 
debts he owes^^ by capturing" her fortune; — and, especially, to 
square accounts with Antonio. These are the coarse temptations 
which operate to obtain from Antonio the loan which is the pivot 
of the piece. 

We next have an exhibition of the personal morals of An- 
tonio, who, though he has spit upon Shylock for taking usury, 
encourages his repetition of that practice by offering to pay him 
usury himself. 

Antonio. Shylock, albeit I neither lend nor borrow, 
By taking nor by giving of excess. 
Yet, to supply the ripe wants of my friend, 
I'll break a custom. 

So much for the morals of Antonio and Bassanio. Let us now 
take the virtuous measure of Lorenzo, Salerio, Gratiano, and 
Salarino. We find ample opportunity for this process in Scene 6 
of Act II., where the two latter are seen lurking about Shylock's 
house at night, in order to assist Lorenzo in his plot to abduct 
Jessica, the Jew^s daughter ; and, as I said before, to rob Shy- 
lock^s vaults. In connexion with this view let it be borne in 
mind that Bassanio has aided them in the disgraceful scheme by 
decoying Shylock to his feast ; ay, to the very feast where these 
shameless rogues are to sit and eat with him after they have 
rifled him of his jewels and his child. 

Act II. Scene 6. — -Before SJiyloch's Souse. 
JEnier Geatiano and Salaeino, masqued. 
Gea. This is the pent-house, under which Lorenzo 
Desired us to make stand. 



Nor Is the wide world ignorant of her worth, 

Por the four winds blow in from every coast 

Eenowned suitors ; and her sunny locks 

Hang on her temples like a golden fleece ; 

Which makes her seat of Belmont Colclios' strand, 

And many Jasons come in quest of her. 

Oh, my Antonio ! had I but the means. 

To hold a rival place with one of them, 

I have a mind presages me such thrift. 

That I should, questionless, be fortunate. 

Act I. Scene 1 . 



124 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

Salae. His hour is almost past. 

Gea. And it is marvel he outdwells his hour, 

For lovers ever run hefore the clock. 
Enter Loeenzo. 
LOE. Sweet friends, your patience for my long ahode : 

Not I, hut my affairs have made you wait : 

When you shall please to flay the thieves for wives, 

I'll watch as long as you. 

Jessica then appears at a window disguised in boy's clothes 
and throws a casket of jewels to Lorenzo^ telling him to wait 
until she gathers up some more of her father's ducats^ when she 
will join him at the door. When her flight is discovered^ the Jew 
rightly suspects that Bassanio, who had decoyed him to his feast, 
is a party to the abduction, and follows him to the strand, where 
he is embarking for Padua, on his trip to swindle Portia. He 
reaches the wharf too late, however, for the adventurer has sailed. 
Bassanio next appears in the neighbourhood of Belmont, and, 
penniless as he is, approaches it with the flourish of a prince. 
He sends a pursuivant before him to announce his coming, 
and to lay at Portia's feet " gifts of rich value" out of Antonio's 
toughly -borrowed money ; but he fails to acquaint Portia with 
his poverty until after he has irrevocably won her in the lottery. 
Here are a precious set of scamps, not one of whom has ever done a 
worthy act or who owns an honest dollar, to contrast with the 
patient and lawful thrift which has made Shylock simply the 
Rothschild or the Drexel of his day, in a way of business now 
practised by every banking institution in the Christian world. 
Finally, that there may be no mistake about the morals 
and motives of the Antonio party, the first exclamation which 
Gratiano makes to one of the gang arriving at Belmont from 
Venice is, while apparently throwing up his hat, — 

" We are the Jasons, we have won the fleece I " 

Moreover, the first exercise of liberty by Antonio, on being res- 
cued from his penalty, is to decline to pay the principal of the 
bond, and to propose, after Shylock has been crushed by the loss 
of his only child and the confiscation of his fortune, the inex- 
pressibly savage punishment of the abjuration of his faith. The 
boundaries of human vengeance had already been reached by the 
abduction of his daughter and the judgment of the court ; but 



" The Merchant of Venice!' 125 

the mild-spoken Antonio goes beyond, and pants to kill his 
Hebrew soul. E-ightly did the Jew exclaim, in view of the 
specimens which Shakespeare set before him, — 

" Father Abraham, what these Christians are ! " 



126 Shakespeare^ from an American Point of View. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

"the merchant op VENICE^' (cONTINIFED) .* 

Let us now turn to the main features of the drama — Shylock^s 
bond — which most conspicuously tests Shakespeare^s law. 

The action of this part of the story begins in the third act, 
after Bassanio has securely landed Portia from his net^ and Gra- 
tiano has won the second prize of the expedition, in the possession 
of Nerissa. Lorenzo has been equally successful with the Jew^s 
daughter, and the whole party are rioting at Belmont over their 
good fortune, when their hilarity is suddenly dampened by the 
arrival of a letter from Antonio with the news that all his ships 
have been wrecked at sea, and that, being unable to meet his 
bond to Shylock, he will have to undergo its penalty. The 
messenger, Salerio, who brings these tidings, also informs the 
startled company that, the day of payment being past, Shylock 
refuses the satisfaction of the bond, and insists upon the bloody 
forfeiture. 

Saleeio. Never did I know 

A creature, that did not bear the shape of man. 
So keen and greedy to confound a man : 
He plies the duke at morning, and at night ; 
And doth impeach the freedom of the state, 
If they deny him justice ; twenty merchants. 
The duke himself, and the magnificoes 
Of greatest port, have all persuaded with him : 
But none can drive him from the envious plea 
Of forfeiture, of justice, and his bond. 

Jessica. When I was with him, I have heard him swear, 
To Tubal and to Chus, his countrymen. 
That he would rather have Antonio's flesh. 
Than twenty times the value of the sum 
That he did owe him ; and I know, my lord, 
If law, authority, and power deny not, 
It will go hard with poor Antonio. 



" The Merchant of Venice" 127 

It is at once agreed, at the end of this conference, that 
Bassanio, Gratiano, and Salerio, shall go immediately to Venice, 
with a large bag of Portia-'s money, to meet all exigencies, as well 
as to pay the bond. In order to draw this money from the lady's 
coffers, Bassanio here, for the first time, confesses to her that he 
has no money of his own. At this parting it is mutually agreed 
by the two newly-married couples that all nuptial joys shall be 
postponed between them until Antonio is released. Bassanio with 
his male friends having started upon this business, Portia hits 
upon the plan of following them with Nerissa, in the disguise of 
a lawyer attended by his clerk. And, in order to actually play a 
lawyer's part in the extrication of Antonio, she sends a messenger 
to a learned old barrister in Padua, named Bellario, who is her 
cousin, requesting him to send lawyer's robes, and give such 
directions in the way of legal points as will enable her to defend 
Antonio in a lawyer-like manner before the court. Having des- 
patched the messenger, she then informs Lorenzo and Jessica, 
who have already commenced their honeymoon, that she intends 
to leave them to keep house a few days, while she and her maid 
Nerissa go to perform a solemn task until her husband's return. 
And here again Shakespeare brings in the inevitable monas- 
tery :— 

PoBTlA. Lorenzo, I commit into your hands 

The husbandry and manage of my house, 
Until my lord's return ; for my own part, 
I have toward heaven breath'd a secret vow, 
To live in prayer and contemplation, 
Only attended by Nerissa here. 
Until her husband and my lord's return ; 
There is a monastery two miles off, 
And there Ave will abide. 
Any other place of abode for a week would have suited the 
purposes of the story quite as well; but Shakespeare must have 
in his monastery, whenever there is an opportunity to show one 
off to advantage. 

All of this last scene is the very height of absurdity. There 
njight have been some sense in employing Bellario to go to 
Venice, where the ladies could also have gone in disguise, and 
have had all the fun they wanted in the way of masking and 
sideplay while the old doctor was trying the case. But for these 
two chits, or, as Portia describes herself, — 



128 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View, 

" An unlesson'd girl, unschoord, unpractised,'' 

to go in barrister^s garments, and with a handful of mere legal 
notes to represent the gravity and learning necessary to conduct 
a capital case, before a court of the highest grade, is an extremity 
of nonsense which reaches the point of absolute burlesque. We 
get at the full ludicrousness of this attempt at deception, by the 
following parting dialogue between Portia and Nerissa, as they 
set out for Venice on this lunatic enterprise : — 

PoE. Come on, Nerissa ; I have work in hand, 

That you yet know not of : we'll see our hushands, 
Before they think of us. 

Nee. Shall they see us ? 

PoE. They shall, Nerissa ; but in such a habit, 
That they shall think we are accomplished 
"With what we lack. I'll hold thee any wager, 
When we are both accouter'd like young men, 
ril prove the prettier fellow of the two. 
And wear my dagger with the braver grace ; 
And speak, between the change of men and boy. 
With a reed voice ; and turn two mincing steps 
Into a manly stride ; and speak of frays. 
Like a fine bragging youth ; and tell quaint lies, 
How honourable laJies sought my love, 
Which I denying, they fell sick and died ; 
I could not do withal : then I'll repent, 
And wish, for all that, that I had not kill'd them. 
And twenty of these puny lies I'll tell, 
That men should swear, I have discontinued school 
Above a twelvemonth : — I have within my mind 
A thousand raw tricks of these bragging Jacks, 
Which I will practise. 

At the commencement of the fourth act, all the parties, except 
Lorenzo and Jessica, meet in the great court of Venice, where 
the Duke, surrounded by his magnificoes, is solemnly presiding. 
Antonio, Bassanio, Gratiano, Salarino, and Salanio are present 
at the opening of the proceedings, and presently, upon the order 
of the Duke, Shylock enters ; whereupon the Duke, — 

Dtjke. Shylock, the world thinks, and I think so, too. 
That thou but lead'st this fashion of thy malice 
To the last hour of act ; and then, 'tis thought, 
Thou'lt show thy mercy and remorse, more strange 
Than is thy strange apparent cruelty ; 



" The Merchant of Venice." 1 29 

And where thou now esact'st the penalty 
(Which is a pound of this poor merchant's flesh), 
Thou wilt not only lose the forfeiture, 
But, touch'd with human gentleness and love, 
Forgive a moiety of the principal ; 
Glancing an eye of pity on his losses. 
That have of late so huddled on his hack. 
Enough to press a royal merchant down. 
* * « 

We all expect a gentle answer, Jew. 
Shy. I have possess'd your grace of what I purpose ; 
And hy our holy Sabbath have I sworn 
To have the due and forfeit of my bond : 
If you deny it, let the danger light 
Upon your charter and your city's freedom. 

So can I give no reason, nor I will not. 

More than a lodged hate, and a certain loathing, 

I bear Antonio, that I follow thus 

A losing suit against him. Are you answer'd ? 

Bass. This is no answer, thou unfeeling man, 
To excuse the current of thy cruelty. 

Shy. I am not bound to please thee with my answer. 

Bass. Do all men kill the things they do not love ? 

Shy. Hates any man the thing he would not kiU ? 

This latter expression of Shylock^s shows express malice, and, 
along with the testimony which Jessica gave to the company at 
Belmont, would have justified an arrest of proceedings by the 
Duke, with an order to take Shylock off to prison. 

Bass. For thy three thousand ducats here is six. 
Shy. If every ducat in six thousand ducats. 

Were in six parts, and every part a ducat, 

I would not draw them ; I would have my bond. 
Duke. How shalt thou hope for mercy, rendering none ? 
Shy. What judgment shall I dread, doing no wrong ? 
Duke. Upon my power I may dismiss this court. 

Unless Bellario, a learned doctor. 

Whom I have sent for to determine this. 

Come here to-day. 

At this point a messenger arrives with a letter from Bellario, 
representing that, being very sick, he sends in his stead a young 
and learned doctor named Balthasar. This introduces Portia, 
who comes dressed as a doctor of laws : — 



130 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View, 

Duke. Give me your hand. Came you from old Bellario ? 

PoE. I did, my lord. 

Duke. You are welcome ; take your place. 

Are you acquainted with the difference 
That holds this present question in the court ? 

PoE. I am informed thoroughly of the cause. 

Which is the merchant here, and which the Jew ? 

Duke. Antonio and old Shylock, both stand forth ! 

PoE. Is your name Shylock ? 

Shy, Shylock is my name. 

PoE. Of a strange nature is the suit you follow ; 
Yet in such a rule, that the Venetian law 
Cannot impugn you, as you do proceed. — 
You stand within his danger, do you not .P 

\To Antonio. 

Ant. Ay, so he says. 

PoE. Do you confess the bond ? 

Ant. I do. 

PoE. Then must the Jew be merciful. 

Shy. On what compulsion must I ? Tell me that. 

PoE. The quality of mercy is not strain'd : 

It droppeth, as the gentle rain from heaven, 
Upon the place beneath : it is twice bless'd; 
It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes : 
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest ; it becomes 
The throned monarch better than his crown ; 
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power, 
The attribute to awe and majesty. 
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings : 
But mercy is above this scepter'd sway. 
It is enthroned in the heart of kings. 
It is an attribute to God Himself; 
And earthly power doth then show likest God's 
When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew, 
Though justice be thy plea, consider this — 
That in the course of justice, none of us 
Should see salvation : we do pray for mercy ; 
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render 
The deeds of mercy. I have spoke thus much, 
To mitigate the justice of thy plea ; 
Which if thou follow, this strict court of Venice 
Must needs give sentence 'gainst the merchant there. 

Shy. My deeds upon my head ! I crave the law. 
The penalty and forfeit of my bond. 

PoE. Is he not able to discharge the money? 

Bass. Yes, here I tender it for him in the court ; 
Yea, thrice the sum ; if that will not suffice, 



** The Merchant of Venicey 131 

I will be bound to pay it ten times o'er, 

On forfeit of my hands, my head, my heart : 

If this will not suffice, it must appear 

That malice bears down truth. And I beseech you 

\To the DuTce. 
Wrest once the law to your authority : 
To do a great right do a little wrong ; 
And curb this cruel devil of his will. 

Portia, nevertheless, admits that the law must take its course^ 
but perceiving' the Jew had made himself ready with his knife, 
she suddenly interferes : — 

PoE. Tarry a little ; there is something else. 

This bond doth give thee here no jot of blood ; • 

The words expressly are a pound of flesh ; 

Take, then, thy bond, take thou thy pound of flesh ; 

But in the cutting it, if thou dost shed 

One drop of Christian blood, thy lands and goods 

Are, by the laws of Venice, confiscate 

Unto the state of Venice. 

Shyloek is then desirous of taking thrice the money ; but, 
Portia objecting-, he is willing- to accept the principal. This 
being objected to also, he curses the debtor and attempts to 
leave the court. In this movement, likewise, he is frustrated by 
the heroine : — 

PoE. Tarry, Jew : 

The law hath yet another hold on you. 
It is enacted in the laws of Venice, 
If it be proved against an alien, 
That by direct or indirect attempts, 
He seek the life of any citizen. 
The party 'gainst the which he doth contrive, 
Shall seize one half his goods ; the other half 
Comes to the privy coffer of the state ; 
And the offender's life lies in the mercy 
Of the duke only, 'gainst all other voice. 
In which predicament, I say thou stand'st : 
For it appeal's by manifest proceeding, 
That, indirectly j,and directly, too. 
Thou hast contriv'd against the very life 
Of the defendant ; and thou hast incurr'd 
The danger formerly by me rehearsed. 
Down, therefore, and beg mercy of the duke ! 



132 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

Duke. That thou shalt see the difference of our spirit, 
I pardon thee thy life before thou ask it : 
For half thy wealth, it is Antonio's ; 
The other half comes to the general state, 
Which, humbleness may drive unto a fine. 

Antonio, who lias suddenly recovered his spirits at this turn 
of things, hereupon thriftily suggests that the fine of the Jew's 
remaining half be turned over to him until Shylock's death, in 
trust, for Lorenzo and Jessica, thus cleverly making himself the 
possessor of three-fourths. This modest request shows him to 
he quite as keen of scent for money as the Jew; hut the 
remainder of the penalty which he proposes exhibits him as 
infinitely more revengeful and malignant : — 

Ant. So please my lord the duke, and all the court, 

To quit the fine for one -half of his goods, 

I am content, so he will let me have 

The other half in use, to render it. 

Upon his death, unto the gentleman 

That lately stole his daughter : 

Two things provided more, — That, for this favour, 

me presently become a Christian ; 

The other, that he do record a gift. 

Here in the court, of all he dies possess'd, 

Unto his son Lorenzo, and his daughter. 
Duke. He shall do this ; or else I do recant 

The pardon, that I late pronounced here. 
PoE. Art thou contented, Jew, what dost thou say ? 
Shy. I am content. 

PoE. Clerk, draw a deed of gift. 

Shy. I pray you give me leave to go from hence : 

I am not well ; send the deed after me, 

And I will sign it. 

\Ilxit ShylocJc. 

This is the last of Shylock, for, utterly broken down by his 
misfortunes, he disappears to die. But the terrible addition to 
his sentence, which Antonio devilishly suggests and which the 
Duke adopts, has been rightly denounced as going beyond all 
reasonable ideas of human punishment. Looking upon Shylock 
as one '^with whose nature religion is^an essential element, and 
whose Mosaism flows from his very heart,^' this portion of the 
sentence put upon him by Antonio, is, to use the words of Elze, 
" no longer poetic justice or tragical retribution, but mental and 



" The Merchant of Venice^ 133 

moral annihilation, the inevitable consequences of which must 
lead to physical death/^ Surely no man who had an enlightened 
belief in his own religion could have put such a penalty as this 
upon another. 

Now, to take it altogether, here is a fine court, and these are 
fine proceedings. Can any one believe, for a moment, that 
Lord Bacon, who was a statesman and a lawyer, or that any other 
man who was a laioyer at all, could have built a story on such a 
jumble of legal absurdities and impossibilities as are here ofiered 
for our entertainment ? The supposition that a cultivated State 
like Venice, in the advanced state of progress represented by the 
period of this play, or that any organized State one degree 
removed above barbarism, would permit a citizen to pledge 
away his life, as an alternative penalty to a money contract, with 
no equity of redemption, is a fiction which no lawyer would tolerate 
for an instant. A lawyer could not invent it, and would not 
receive it second-hand for constructive purposes, because he would*—"—' 
be at war, at every breath, with his sense of professional con- 
gruity. His mind could not work at all on such a plan. Least 
of all would a proud judge like Bacon, who had sat for years in 
all the frozen dignity of the Lord Chancellorship of England, 
have written a scene which yielded all the arbitrary functions of 
a ducal bench to a beardless, prating boy, or have turned the 
court-room into a shambles by permitting the creditor to cut 
his victim up in their presence. He certainly would not have made 
so high placed a magistrate as the Duke exhibit such imbecile 
ignorance of the law as Shakespeare imputes to him, nor have 
conveyed all the functions of authority and judgment upon the 
young advocate, in the face of the admissions made by other 
portions of the text that the Duke had ample power not only to 
adjourn the court, but to remit the death .penalty from Shylock. 
Nay, even to decree confiscation of his goods, and impose every 
form of judgment, out of hand. 

It may be urged, on the other hand, that the laws of Venice 
were exceptionally rigorous, indeed Draconian ; and it has been 
urged " that • the horrible incident of cutting ofi" the flesh found 
its origin in that atrocious decemviral law of the twelve tables of 
Rome, which empowered a creditor to mangle the living body of 
his debtor without fear of punishment." For the honour of the 
Roman law, however, it is not recorded that this inhuman 
10 



134 Shakespeare, from an American Point of Viczu. 

privilege ever was enforced. Buddhist legends, and the Guleding 
law of Norway, show that other countries permitted the creditor 
to hack off from the debtor, who would not work for him, as much 
flesh as he liked ; but, with all, an equity of redemption was pro- 
vided for, and the debtor ceased to be a debtor when he could 
tender the amount of his obligation, with compound interest, or 
some other penalty of accumulation. This equity presented itself 
with peculiar force in Antonio^s case, who had not made default 
through dishonesty, wastefulness, or any form of personal 
improvidence, but under lightning and storm, and the irresistible 
visitation of God. 

It is surprising that Lord Chief Justice Campbell, in his 
reply to Mr. Payne Collier^s inquiry — whether Shakespeare had 
ever served in an attorney's office — should not have responded, 
when treating of the legal evidences in this play, by showing 
how utterly ignorant Shakespeare V!a.s oi ^\q pJiiloso2oJi^ of law ; 
but his lordship goes simply over the surface of the play for 
mere phrases of attorneyship, and satisfies himself with such 
terms as '^single bond," " let good Antonio keep Ids day" and with 
Shylock's rebuke to the jailor for taking Antonio out of prison 
for a walk, (which his lordship calls Shylock's threat to prosecute 
the jailor " with an action for escajje,") to establish the conclusion 
that Shakespeare had undoubtedly, at some time, served under 
an attorney. 

I have nothing further to comment upon in connexion with 
" The Merchant of Venice,^' as bearing upon our inquiry, except 
to direct attention to the following allusions, which Shake- 
speare is so fond of making to the superior human worthiness of 
princes and kings : — 

Then music is 
Even as the flouiisli when true subjects bow 
To a new crowned monarch. 

Act III. Scene 2. 
As, after some oration fairly spoke 
By a beloved prince, there doth appear 
Among the buzzing pleased multitude, 
Where every something, being blent together. 
Turns to a wild joy of nothing, save of joy, 
Express'd, and not express'd. 

Act III. Scene 2. 
Portia's apotheosis to Mercy contains another striking instance 



** The Merchant of Venice!^ 135 

of this involuntary homage j — but finally, in the fifth act, she 
gives another : — ■ 

PoE. How fai' that little candle throws its beams ! 

So shines a good deed in a naughty world. 
Nee. When the moon shone we did not see the candle, 
PoE. So doth the greater glory dim the less : 

A substitute shines brightly as a king, 

Until a king be by ; and then his state 

Empties itself, as doth an inland brook. 

Into the main of waters. 



136 Shakespeare^ from an American Point of View. 



CHAPTER XV. 

^'much ado about nothing." 

The plot of this play, according" to Pope, was taken by Shake- 
speare from the fifth book of Orlando Purioso, and was first 
printed in the year 1600. Steevens thinks that Spenser's 
Faerie Queene furnished the main incidents and groundwork of 
the story, while others attribute it to Bandello's 22nd tale, 
Timbreo of Cardena. Its origin, however, is a matter of no 
importance to the line of inquiry we are upon, and it has 
not enough expression bearing upon our points, to claim much 
attention. 

The first thing which strikes us is the dialogue that occurs at 
the opening of the piece, between Leonato and a messenger, who 
has just come in with the news of a battle, inasmuch as it shows 
how Shakespeare constantly ignores all consideration for the 
welfare of common people from his mind : — 

Leonato. How many gentlemen have you in this action ? 
Mbssengee. But few of any sort, and none of name. 
Leonato. A victory is twice itself when the achiever brings home full 
numbers — 

and here Leonato stops, without deigning to inquire how many 
common soldiers have been killed, wounded, and captured. 

The next thing which attracts our attention is the introduction 
of a friar in the fourth act, who, immediately upon the unjust 
accusation of Hero, takes up the leading and most estimable 
action of the piece. He is the first to say to the swooning and 
barbarously injured maiden, " Have comfort, lady,'' and to thus 
beautifully beg of her accusers a fair and patient hearing : — 

Teiae. Hear me a little ; 

For I have only been silent so long, 

And given waj' unto this course of fortune, 



" Mtich Ado about Nothing^ 137 

By noting of the lady ; I have mark'd 
A thousand blushing apparitions start 
Into her face ; a thousand innocent shames 
In angel whiteness bear away those blushes ; 
And in her eye there hath appear'd a fire. 
To burn the errors that these princes hold. 
Against her maiden truth : — Call me a fool ; 
Trust not my reading, nor my obserYations, 
Which with experimental zeal doth warrant 
The tenour of my book ; trust not my age, 
My reverence, calling, nor divinity 
If this sweet lady lie not guiltless here 
Under some biting error. 
Leonato. Friar, it cannot be ; 

Thou seest, that all the grace that she hath left, 
Is, that she will not add to her damnation 
A sin of perjury ; she not denies it : 
Why seek'st thou then to cover with excuse 
That which appears in proper nakedness ? 

The benevolent and sagacious friar, nevertheless, persists ', and 
finally, by suggesting- the device that the lady shall be reported 
dead until the slander is cleared up, succeeds in vindicating her 
fair fame, and in bringing everything to a happy termination. 
In pursuance of this pious plan of the worthy father, Shake- 
speare, of course, introduces the convent or monastery, which he 
ever seems to have on hand, and which, as in the following lines 
of the friar, he always gives a good account of : — 

Feiae. You may conceal her 

(As best befits her wounded reputation) ^ 

In some reclusive and religious life, 

Out of all eyes, tongues, minds, and injuries. 

Finally the friar is successful, and has the great triumph of being 
able to exclaim, in the last scene, — 

Did I not tell you she was innocent ? 

This brings the hymeneal fates of Benedick and Beatrice to a 
crisis; and. Benedick, having secured the consent of Beatrice, 
addresses himself to her father for his acquiescence. He thus con- 
signs himself to the hands of the good friar for his mediation : — 

Benedick. My will is, that your good wiU 

May stand with ours, this day to be conjoin'd 

In the estate of honourable marriage ; 

In which, good friar, I shall desire your Jielj^. 



1 38 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

It will be seen^ therefore, that in this play, as in " Measure for 
Measure," " The Comedy of Errors/-* and all we have thus far 
scrutinized, Shakespeare loses • no opportunity to exhibit his 
profound reverence and superior respect for the Roman Catholic 
faith. His priests and female devotees are filled with all the 
known virtues, and are always chosen as his favourite instruments 
for the moral adjustment of his plots. 

Before disposing- of this piece, I cannot avoid remarking upon 
the singular and painful inappropriateness of the levity of Claudio 
in his gibing scene with Benedick, immediately after the de- 
grading and tragic death of his betrothed ; nor can I help pro- 
testing against the gross obscenity of some of the dialogues in 
which Beatrice takes a leading part. Though she is represented 
as a lady of the highest rank and refinement, we are brought 
irresistibly to the conclusion, that our poet could not have had as 
good an opportunity of knowing what high-bred ladies were, as 
had Lord Bacon. 

Kl^OWLEDGB OE LAW. 

The evidences which Lord Chief Justice Campbell finds of 
Shakespeare's knowledge of the Imo, in '^Much Ado about 
Nothing," are hardly worthy of our serious attention. His 
lordship thinks that the characters of Dogberry and Verges were 
meant to satirize the ignorance of parish constables, and possibly 
were aimed as high as at " Chairmen at Quarter Sessions and 
even Judges of Assize, with whose performances he (Shakespeare) 
may probably have become acquainted at Warwick and else- 
where.'''' His lordship then delivers himself upon Dogberry's 
learning as follows : — 

^^ If the dijSerent parts of Dogberry^s charge are strictly 
examined, it will be found that the author of it had a very- 
respectable acquaintance with crown law. The problem was to 
save the constables from all trouble, danger, and responsibility, 
without any regard to the public safety. 

" DoGB. If you meet a thief, you may suspect liim by virtue of your office, 
to be no true man ; and for such kind of men, the less you meddle or make 
with them, -why, the more is for your honesty. 

"2 Watch. If we know him to be a thief, shall we not lay hands on 
him? 

" DoGB. Truly, by your office you may ; but, I think, they that touch 



■ "As Vou Like Itr 139 

pitcli will be defiled. The most peaceable way for you, if you do take a 
thief, is to let him show himself what he is, and steal out of your company. 

"■ Now there can be no doubt," says Campbell, " that Lord 
Coke himself could not more accurately have defined the power 
of a peace-officer." 

It seems to me that Lord Chief Justice Campbell, who over- 
looked the g-ross violations of the philosophy of law exhibited in 
''The Merchant of Venice" when he was reviewing that play, 
must have been much below himself, not only at that time, but 
when he selected the above absurd travestie, or dog-law, as it 
might be called, as an evidence of Shakespeare's proficiency in 
law learning. 



" AS YOU LIKE IT.' 

The plot of this play is borrowed, according to Shakespeare's 
usual custom ; but, the characters having passed through the 
magical alembic of his mind, are distinct and breathing creatures, 
which are entirely his own. The story is taken from Lynde's 
" Eosalynd," or " Euphues' Golden Legacy," published in 
London as late as 1590, and this play appears in 1 600. Shake- 
speare, however, adds three new characters to it — those of Jaques, 
Audrey, and the Clown, while of the other characters, it may be 
said, that the passage of them through the hands of our poet, is 
like the transmutation of base metals into gold. 

The first act of " As You Like It " opens by introducing 
Orlando, the youngest son of Sir Rowland de Bois, deceased, who 
is living in idle dependence upon his eldest brother Oliver, the 
heir of the whole of the estate- With Orlando appears an 
aged servant of Sir E-owland's, who is especially attached to the 
young man, and who, when the latter is banished, resolves to 
follow his fortunes into exile, in preference to remaining with 
the elder brother. This servant's name is Adam, and in the 
original story by Lynde he is represented to be an Englishman. 

The first act contains a scene in which Orlando wrestles with 
one. Monsieur Charles, a professional athlete ; and, of course, he 
overthrows the brawny peasant as (according to all the laws of 
Shakespearian discrimination) a young nobleman should do. 
This victory obtains for Orlando the favour of Kosalind, the 
daughter of the banished duke, but it gets Orlando banished. 



140 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

Rosalind^ thereupon, puts on a disguise and follows hinij and 
Celia (the daughter, of the reigning duke), whose heart and 
Rosalindas have beaten in friendship against each other's ribs 
since the hour of their mutual truckle-bed, decides promptly to 
desert her father's court and go along with her. 

Faithful Old Adam, of course, accompanies Orlando, and inas- 
much as the portrait of this old servitor may be said to be the 
solitary instance in the whole of Shakespeare's writings, where 
a poor or an humble person escapes our poet's contempt,^ I will 
give it in full. 

OEliANDO. Why, whither, Adam, wouldst thou have me go ? 

Adam. No matter whither, so you stay not here. 

Oel. What, wouldst thou have me go and beg my food ? 

Or, with a base and boisterous sword, enforce 

A thievish living on the common road ? 

This I must do, or know not what to do ; 

Yet this I will not do, do how I can ; 

I rather will subject me to the malice 

Of a diverted blood, and bloody brother. 
Adam. But do not so ; I have five hundred crowns. 

The thrifty hire I saved under your father. 

Which I did store, to be my foster-nurse. 

When service should in my old limbs lie lame, 

And unregarded age in corners thrown ; 

Take that ; and He that doth the ravens feed, 

Yea, providently caters for the sparrow, 
■ Be comfort to my age ! Here is the gold — 

All this I give you ; let me be your servant ; 

Though I look old, yet I am strong and lusty. 

For in my youth I never did apply 

Hot and rebellious liquors in my blood : 

Nor did not, with unbashful forehead, woo 

The means of weakness and debility ; 

Therefore, my age is as a lusty winter — 

Frosty, but kindly. Let me go with you ; 

I'll do the service of a younger man 

In all your business and necessities. 
Gel. O, good old man ; how well in thee appears 

The constant service of the antique world. 

When service sweat for duty, not for meed ! 

Thou art not for the fashion of these times, 

^ There is one other quasi instance of a servant's faithfulness in " Timon of 
Athens," but I will deal with that in its due order. 



''As Yoic Like It :\ 141 

Where none will sweat but for promotion ; 
And having that, do choke their service up. 
Even with the having : it is not so with thee. 
But, poor old man, thou prun'st a rotten tree 
That cannot so much as a blossom yield 
In lieu of all thy pains and husbandry. 
But come thy ways ; we'll go along together. 
And ere we have thy youthful wages spent 
We'll light upon some settled low content. 
Adam. Master, go on, and I will follow thee 

To the last gasp with truth and loyalty. 

JFrom seventeen years, till now, almost fourscore, 

Here lived I, but now live here no more. 

At seventeen years, many their fortunes seek. 

But at fourscore it is too late a week ; ' . 

Yet fortune cannot recompense me better 

Than to die well, and not my master's debtor. 

. This is the picture of a poor but grateful and very worthy 
man, and from the style in which it is presented^ cannot fail to 
challenge our admiration. But, there are three motives to be 
traced in this instance where Shakespeare has departed from 
his contemptuous rule against the poor. First, the servant is an 
English servant, which is one inducement for our poet (who 
is always intensely English) to represent him favourably ; next, 
Adam^s fidehty serves the constant Shakespearian purpose of in- 
culcating loyalty and obedience of servants to their masters ; but 
Shakespeare's main object doubtless, is, to make Adam operate 
as a foil or stimulant to the superior virtues of the noble young 
Orlando, who is willing to fight a whole forest full of people to 
obtain the old man food. Being exceedingly hungry himself, 
however, it is not difficult for us to account for the savage 
determination which Orlando exhibits in this enterprise. 

It is worthy of observation, however, that Shakespeare, having 
found this character of Adam ready made to his hand, could 
hardly exclude it from the plot ; and especially deserving of our 
notice, that while, in the original story of Lynde, the faith- 
fulness of Adam is rewarded, Shakespeare passes him out of his 
hands entirely without recompense. One of the early critics, 
noticing this fact, says, " Shakespeare has made an interesting 
use of Lynde's story, with the exception of the character of 
Adam, whose fidelity is strangely neglected ; whereas in Lynde's 
novel he is justly rewarded/* 



142 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

Bearing further upon Shakespeare's estimation of the lower 
orders, we find the following, Act I. Scene 2 : — 

1 LoKD. Anon a careless herd, 

Full of the pasture, jumps along by him, 

And never stays to greet him. " Ay," quoth Jaques, 

" Sweep on, you fat and greasy citizens ; 

'Tis just the fashion ; wherefore do you look 

Upon that poor and broken hanlcrupt there?" 

Among the internal evidences in this play of Shakespeare's 
religion, the first that comes before us, is the use made by the 
Duke Frederick of the Catholic word ■purgation : " Thus do all 
traitors; if their purgation did consist in words;'' but I admit 
that this evidence is a slight one. The next, however, which 
drops from the Duke, senior, in Act II. Scene 7, is a more dis- 
tinctive Catholic symptom : — 

DtTKB S. True is it that we have seen better days ; 

And have with holy bell been knoll'd to church. 

We know, of course, that Protestant churches, like Catholic 
ones, summon their devotees together by the tolling of bells ; but 
while the Protestant bells are, in themselves, only an ordinary 
piece of unrespected church furniture, the church bells of the 
Catholics are always formally consecrated and blessed. A Pro- 
testant would never think of using such a term as "holy bell ;" 
a Catholic could not think of a church bell without applying it. 

The next proof we have of Shakespeare's Catholicity in this 
play, occurs in the third scene of the third act, where Touchstone, 
the court clown, says to Audrey, the country wench, — 

But be it as it may be, I will marry thee : and to that end, I have been 
with Sir Oliver Mar-text, the vicar of the next village ; who hath promised 
to meet me in this place of the forest, and to couple us. . . Here comes 
Sir Oliver — Sir Oliver Mar-text, jo\x are well met : Will j'ou despatch us here 
under this tree, or shall we go with you to your chapel .? 

Sir Olivee. Is there none here to give the woman ? 

ToTJCHSTONE. I will not take her on gift of any man. 

Sir Oliver. Truly, she must be given, or the marriage is not lawful. 

At this critical moment, the cynical and philosophic Jaques 
appears from the covert, and says, — 

Proceed, proceed : I'll give her. . . . Will you be married, motley? 
Touchstone. As the ox hath his bow, sir, the horse his curb, and the 



'' As You Like I C 143 

falcon her bells, so man liatli his desires ; and, as pigeons bill, so wedlock 
would be nibbling. 

Jaques. And will yon, being a man of your breeding, be married under a 
bush, like a beggar ? Get you to church, and have a good priest that can 
tell you lohat marriage is ; this felloio %oill hut join you together as they 
joimoainscot ; then, one of you will prove a shrunk panel, and, like green 
timber, warp, warp. 

Touchstone. I am not in the mind, but I were better to be married of 
him than another : for he is not like to marry me well, and not being well 
married, it will be a good excuse for me hereafter to leave my wife. 

Jaques. Go thou with me, and let me counsel thee. 

Touchstone. Farewell, good master Oliver ! 

SiE Oliver. 'Tis no matter ; ne'er a fantastical knave of them all shall 
flout me out of my calling. 

It is obvious tliat this sorry treatment of Sir Oliver by Shake- 
speare_, indicates that Sir Oliver is a Protestant preacher. In the 
next scene Rosalind says, — 

And his kissing is as full of sanctity as the touch of holy bread. 
What Protestant would ever speak of IioIt/ bread ? 

Celia. He hath bought a pair of cast lips of Diana : a nun of winter's 
sisterhood kisses not more religiously ; the very ice of chastity is in them. 

In these extracts we have the contrast clearly marked by 
Shakespeare^s estimation, relatively, between a Protestant vicar 
and a Catholic priest ; and in the latter, with its exquisite defini- 
tion of conventual purity, we have the spontaneous illustrations 
of a Catholic soul. 

There are but two further observations which I wish to make 
upon this play. The first is, that Eosalind is more to be con- 
demned for the licentious impropriety of her language than 
Beatrice in " Much Ado about Nothing '," and, in this respect, is 
even less of a lady than Beatrice, though Shakespeare tries to 
make her more of one. My next observation is, that wickedness, 
as represented in its most execrable form in Orlando^s elder 
brother, is as hastily presented for the forgiveness of the audience, 
as in the cases of Proteus in the " Two Gentlemen of Verona," 
and of the fiend Angelo in " Measure for Measure.''^ The moral 
of the play is, therefore, not only bad, but, what is more to the 
point, does not indicate that professional sense of the neces- 
sities of retribution, which might be expected from any real 
lawyer^s mind. In my opinion, a lawyer like Bacon would never 
have dreamed of forgiving Oliver, Proteus, or Angelo. 



144 Shakespeare, from an AmeiHcan Point of View. 

Lord CamplDell^ nevertlieless^ finds several evidences of Shake- 
speare^s familiarity with law ];)ractice or attorneyship in this 
play, such, for instance, as Rosalindas pert expression, in the first 
act, of " Be it known unto all men by these presents/'' His 
lordship next notices the words testament and hanhnipt, both 
applied by the poet only to a wounded deer, as indications of 
Shakespeare's law attainments, and further on reinforces his case, 
by quoting the casual use of such words as attorney, and such 
phrases as term and term as applied to lawyers' habits; even 
lugging in the following, as applicable to his proof : — 

EosALiND. Well, Time is the old Justice that examines all offenders, and 
let Time try. 

But what Lord Campbell dwells upon, as if conclusive of Shake- 
speare's possession of very considerable legal attainments, is 
" that the usurping Duke Frederick, who wishing all the real pro- 
perty of Oliver to be seized, awards a writ of extent against him in 
language which would," says his lordship, "be used by the Lord 
Chief Baron of the Court of Exchequer : — 

" Dttke. rEED. Make an extent upon his Jiouse and lands. 

" This,'^ continues his lordship, " is an extendi facias applying to 
house and lands, as a fieri facias would apply to goods and 
chattels, or a capias . ad satisfaciendum to the person." All of 
which learned and erudite observation, I beg to remark, goes to 
show the extent to which his lordship had become confused by 
his unusual literary task, rather than to prove anything else. 



" The Taming of the Shrew'' 145 



CHAPTER XVI. 

"the taming of the shrew/^ 

" The Taming" of the Shrew " contributes nothing of importance 
to our inquiry. It is one of the weakest of our poeVs produc- 
tions, and is founded, says Malone, on an anonymous play of 
nearly the same title, "The Taming of a Shrew/^ which was 
probably written about the year 1590, either by George Peele or 
Robert Greene. Shakespeare produced his play in 1597, and it 
was first printed in the folio of 1623. The outline of the 
Induction is supposed to have been taken from "The Sleeper 
Awakened^'' of the Arabian Nights. The feature which most 
strikes us on a general perusal is, that Katharine, the heroine, is 
not a whit more nice or modest in her language than Beatrice or 
Rosalind ; and thus contributes to the conviction, that Shakespeare 
had had but poor opportunities of closely studying true ladies 
and their manners — a study in which Lord Racon, doubtless, 
had greatly the advantage of him. 

The play contains some evidences of the contempt our poet 
had for every one of lowly birth or humble calling. In the 
induction, while a nobleman is amusing himself by misleading 
the drunken wits of Christopher Sly, a trumpet is heard, and a 
servant, Avho is commissioned to ascertain what it means, reports 
by ushering in a lot of players, whom my lord thus addresses : — 

LoED. '^oyj fellows you are welcome. 

Platees. We fhAnk your honour, 

• LoKD. Do you intend to stay with me to-night ? 

2 Playee. So please your lordship to accept our duty. 

LoED. "With all my heart. — This fellow I remember, 

Go, sirrah, take them to the buttery. 
And give them friendly welcome every one : 
Let them want nothing that my house affords. 



146 Shakespeare, fro77Z an American Point of View. 

In Act IV. Scene 1, Petrucliio^ angrily addressing Grumio^ his 
servant, exclaims, — 

You feasant swain ! you whoreson malt-Lorse drudge ! 

And in Act V. Scene 1, Katharine folds lier arms submissively 
across her breast and bows as if before anointed royalty : — 

Kathaeine. Sucli duty as the subject owes the prince, 
Even such, a woman oweth to her husband. 

Lord Campbell finds many evidences in ^' The Taming of the 
Shrew " of our poet^s knowledge of the law. He says that in the 
" Induction/^ Shakespeare betrays an intimate knowledge of the 
matters wdiich may be prosecuted as offences before the Court 
Leet, the lowest court of criminal judicature in England. We 
quote his lordship : — 

" He " (Shakespeare) " puts the following speech into the 
mouth of a servant, who is trying to persuade Sly he is a 
great lord, and that he had been in a dream for fifteen years, 
during which time he had ignorantly imagined himself to be a 
mere frequenter of alehouses : — 

For though you lay here in this goodly chamber, 
Yet would you say, you were beaten out of door. 
And rail upon the hostess of the house. 
And say you would present her at the leet, 
Because she brought stone jugs, and no seaVd quarts. 

" Now, in the reigns of Elizabeth and James 1.," says his lord- 
ship, " there was a very wholesome law, that, for the protection of 
the public against ' false measures,-' ale should be sold only in 
sealed vessels of the standard capacity ; and the violation of the 
law was to be presented at the ' Court Leet,^ or * View of 
Frankpledge,' held in every hundred, manor, or lordship, before 
the steward of the leet." 

His lordship finds his next illustration in Scene 2 of Act I., 
where Tranio says, — 

Please ye, we may contrive this afternoon, 
And quaff carouses to our mistress'' health ; 
And do as adversaries do in late, 
Strive mightily, hut eat and drinJc as friends. 

Eeallyj it would seem as if some of the admiring commen- 



" Loves Labour s Lost.'' 147 

tators of Shakespeare labour at times to prove him to have been 
an idiot. Nothing can be more evident, than that any man of 
ordinary intelligence must have bad the stone-jug law forced 
upon his observation an hundred times, and particularly in a 
country town like Stratford ; while the fictitious quarrels of paid 
advocates have been the subject of every yokePs sneer since pro- 
ceedings at law were first made public. Lord Campbell finally 
points to Katharine^s use of the word craven, with the remark 
that "All lawyers know craven to be the word spoken by a 
champion who acknowledged he was beaten, and declared that he 
would fight no more, whereupon judgment was immediately 
given against the side which he supported, and he bore the 
infamous name of craven for the rest of his days.-*^ 

I doubt if any reader will require a word from me to rebut this 
sort of argument. 



LOVE S LABOUE, S LOST. 



This play is one of the few that were published during Shake- 
speare^s lifetime, the date of its appearance in pi-int being fixed 
at 1598. It is one of the weakest of our poet^s productions; 
and, if he had been asked for the plot of it, says Knight, he 
might have answered, anticipating Canning's knife-grinder, 
" Story ! God bless you ! I have none to tell, sir.-*' Dr. Johnson 
declares it to be filled with passages that are " mean, childish 
and vulgar, and some which ought not to have been exhibited, 
as we are told they were, to a maiden queen. ■"' " Nevertheless," 
adds the Doctor, " there are scattered through the whole many 
sparks of genius : nor is there any play that has more evident 
marks of the hand of Shakespeare.''^ 

The scene is laid in Navarre, but there is no period assigned 
for the story ; which seems to have a roving commission, ranging 
anywhere through the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries. 
The first lines which attract our attention are those by which 
the Princess of France repels a fulsome compliment paid to her 
by her Lord Chamberlain, and which contain a contemptuous 
estimation of persons engaged in trade : — 

Peincess. Good Lord Boyet, my beauty, though but mean. 
Needs not the painted flourish of your praise ; 



148 Shakespeare, fro7n an American Point of View. 

Beauty is bought by judgment of tbe eye, 
Not utter'd hy base sale of chapman's tongues. 

The next is a law phrase by one of the Princesses ladies : — 
My lips are no common, though several they be. 

In Act IV. Scene 2^ we have the introduction of Sir Nathaniel, 
a foolish parson or curate, and of Holofernes, his friend, a Pro- 
testant pedant. Sir Nathaniel characterizes himself by saying- 
to HoloferneSj — 

SiE Nathaniel. I praise the Lord for you ; and so may my parishioners ; 
for their sons are well tutored by you, and their daughters profit very greatly 
under you. 

Again, the peasants Jaquenetta and Costard call Sir Nathaniel 
"^ood master parson.''-' Shakespeare treats both of these 
characters with contemptuous levity. Finally they are made 
the derision of the lords and ladies, and the butt of their scur- 
rilous wit in a foolish dramatic personation of the "Nine 
Worthies,-''' in which the insults of the courtly audience are so 
mean and merciless, that Holofernes, who is a kindly, worthy 
man, complains against the outrage with an earnest gentleness 
which is so absolutely touching, that if the lords and ladies had 
possessed any sense of shame, the reproach would have covered 
them with blushes. Being called an ass while reciting his lines 
to the best of his ability, he thus appeals : — 

This is not generous ; not gentle ; not humble. 

Instead, however, of feeling thi's rebuke, the scorn of the courtiers 
rapidly grows coarser. Shakespeare never subjects his monks and 
priests to this kind of insult. The Princess and her maids of 
honour, Rosaline, Maria, and Katherine, are all of the Beatrice 
and Katharina stamp ; and their language is frequently of such 
a licentious character that it could not be transcribed to modern 
print, outside of the tolerated leaves of Shakespeare. The only 
shadow of excuse I can find for our poet in this respect, is that 
Rabelais, whom he quotes in '^As You Like It,''' was then 
in the height of his obscene popularity, and had, to a certain 
extent, vilely infected much of the literary mind of Europe. 
Happily, few but mere scholars reads that singularly objection- 
able writer now. 

The law phrase which I have pointed out above — 
My lips are no common, though several they he. 



" Loves Labour s Lost!' 149 

— seems to have escaped the observation of Lord Campbell ; but 
he gives us in recompense the following from the first act : — 

" In Act I. Scene 1/' says his lordship^ " we have an extract 
from the report by Don Adriano de Armado, of the infraction he 
had witnessed of the King^s proclamation by Costard with Jaque- 
netta ; and it is drawn up in the true^ lawyer-like^ tautological 
dialect^ — which is to be paid for, at so much a folio : — 

" Then for the place where ; where, I mean, I did encounter that obscene 
and most preposterous event, that dratceth from my snow-white pen the 
ebon-coloured inJc, which here thou viewest, beholdest, surveyest, or seest, 

Sim I {as my ever-esteemed duty pricJcs me on) have sent to thee, 

to receive the meed of punishment, by thy sweet grace's officer, Antony 
Dull ; a man of good repute, carriage, bearing, and estimation. 

" The gifted Shakespeare/' adds his lordship, '' might perhaps 
have been capable, by intuition, of thus imitating the con- 
veyancer's jargon j but no ordinary man could have hit it off so 
exactly, without having engrossed in an attorney's office." 

Finally, our poet, having got through with his gibes and his 
jeers, his oblique morality, his obscene wit and his merciless 
roasting of the Protestants, uncovers his reserved monastery, 
which he always seems to have cosily wrapped in a handkerchief 
under his arm, and sets it down reverently and complacently 
before us : — 

Peincess. Your oath I will not trust ; but go with speed 
To some forlorn and naked hermitage, 
IRemotefrom all the pleasures of the world ; 
There stay, until the twelve celestial signs 
Save brought about their annual reckoning : 
If this austere insociable life 
Change not your offer made in heat of blood ; 
If frosts, and fasts, hard lodging, and thin weeds, 
Nip not the gaudy blossoms of your love. 
But that it bear this trial, and last love; 
Then, at the expiration of the year, 
Come challenge, challenge me by these deserts, 
And, by this virgin palm, now kissing thine, 
I will be thine ; and, till that instant, shut 
My woeful self up in a m,ourning house ; 
Eaining the tears of lamentation, 
Tor- the remembrance of my father's death. 
If this thou do deny, let our hands part ; 
Neither intitled in the other's heart. 
11 



I=iO 



Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 



This grand coup in favour of a monastery and a convent closes 
up the play. Be it observed, however, that the introduction of 
neither is necessary to the year's postponement; the death of 
the father of the Princess being sufficient, in itself, for that 
furlough of the action. 



" All's Well that Ends Welir 151 



CHAPTER XVII. 

"all's well that ends well/^ 

The story of this play was taken by Shakespeare from the 
romantic story in Boccaccio, called " Giletta of Narbon ; " though 
it came immediately to our pacta's hand, says Dr. Farmer, from 
Paynter^s '^ Palace of Pleasure/' which was printed in 1575. 
Shakespeare transposed its scenes into a drama in about 1589, 
adding the four characters of Parolles, Lafeu, the Countess, and 
the Clown, which, under his magical touch, have been made, 
with the exception of Helena, the most interesting characters of 
the dramatis personse. The play was published, according to, the 
best accounts, about the year 1598, under the title of "Love's 
Labour's Won," and was doubtless intended to be an oiFset or 
counterpart to " Love's Labour's Lost." It was retouched and 
reproduced in 1601-2, under the new title of "All's Well that 
Ends Well," which re-naming was suggested and justified by 
the words of Helena, towards the close : — 

All's ivell that ends ivell : still tbe fine's the crown ; 
Whate'er the course, the end is the renown. 

She again uses the same expression in Act V. Scene 1 ; while 
the King, in his last speech, closes with " All yet seejiis well." 
The phrase finally appears in the epilogue, under the form of 
" All is well ended " — though this might have been written 
in at the time of reproduction, in order to give the change of 
title a still further warrant. 

The story of the piece is very simple. The King, who pos- 
sesses the highest personal virtues, is ill with an incurable disease, 
and is fast wearing to the grave, to the unbounded regret of all 
his subjects. Helena, the heroine, is the beautiful daughter o*f 
the deceased Gerard de Narbon, who in his lifetime was the 
most eminent physician in the kingdom, and had the honour of 



152 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

the King's personal friendsliip. Helena^ herself, though poor, 
has therefore rank enough to be a gentlewoman, and, as such, is 
taken under the protection of the Countess of Rousillon, the 
mother of Bertram, of whom she becomes enamoured. She is 
prudent enough, however, to conceal her love, in consequence of 
the difference in degree between herself and that high-born lord. 
She worships Bertram, therefore, only as the Indian does the sun, 
without hope of getting possession of him, until she suddenly be- 
thinks her of some secret remedies left by her father, one of which 
happens fortunately to be a specific for the King's disease. She 
then conceives the idea of going to the King and agreeing to restore 
him to health within eight days, at the risk of her own life, pro- 
vided he will confer upon her the hand of such one of the young 
feudal lords of his court, who are in ward to him, as she may 
select. She succeeds in restoring the King to health, and there- 
upon chooses Bertram. The proud young nobleman resists the 
match, but being forced to it by the King, he at once absconds 
to the Italian wars, ordering his new wife back to Bousillon at 
the hour of his departure, under the falsehood that he will 
meet her there within two days. Helena obeys him without 
suspicion ; but, upon her arrival at the palace of Bousillon, finds 
that the Countess, his mother, has received from him the following 
letter : — 

Countess, [i^eac^s.] I have sent you a daiigJiter-in-law : she hath re- 
covered the Icing, and undone me. I have icedded her, not hedded her ; and 
sworn to mahe the " not " eternal. You shall hear, I am run away ; Icnow 
it before the report come. If there he breadth enough in the world, I will 
hold a long distance. My duty to you. 

Helena also finds a letter awaiting herself, which contains the 
following challenge to her desires : — 

Helena. \_Iteads^ When thou canst get the ring upon my finger which 
never shall come off, and show me a child begotten of thy body that I am 
father to, then call me husband : but in such a then I lorite a never. 

Helena, whom Dowden characterizes as the very embodiment of 
toill, and who he considers would even be enfeebled by the disguise 
of male attire, does not hesitate to accept the immodest challenge, 
"but starts promptly after Bertram to Italy, leaving behind her 
a letter to the Countess, which again brings in our poet's pet 
idea of a convent, and of Catholic discipline : — 



''AWs Well that Ends Well." 153 

I am St. Jaques' pilgrhn, thither gone : 
Ambitious love hath so in me offended, 

That bare-footed plod I the cold ground upon. 
With sainted vow my faults to have amended. 
* * * 

JBless him at home in peace, whilst I from far, 
Sis name with zealous fervour sanctify. 

The enterprising lady finds Bertram in Florence, where the 
Duke has already made him Master of Horse,, or commander- 
in-chief of all the cavalry in the field. He has thus become a 
hero, but, under the influence of a dissolute favourite, Parolles, 
he lives, in his hours of relaxation, a most licentious life. Among- 
the exploits of this portion of his career, he attempts the seduc- 
tion of a young lady of good family, named Diana Capulet, in 
whose house Helena has taken up her temporary residence, as a 
pilgrim to Saint Jaques le grand. This illicit suit of Bertram's 
comes to the ears of Helena, who thereupon, explaining to the 
Capulet family who she is, succeeds in inducing Diana to make 
an assignation, by which Bertram may at midnight obtain 
access to her (Diana's) chamber, in order that, favoured by the 
dark, she (Helena) may take her place. The following briefly 
tells this portion of the story : — 

Diana. Give me tHat ring. 

Bee. I'll lend it thee, my dear, but have no power 

To give it from me. 
DiA. Will you not, my lord .P 

Bee. It is an honour 'longing to our house, 

Bequeathed down from many ancestors ; 

Which were the greatest obloquy i' the world 

In me to lose. 
DiA. Mine honour's such a ring : 

My chastity's the jewel of our house. 

Bequeathed down from many ancestors ; 

Which were the greatest obloquy i' the world 

In me to lose : Thus your own proper wisdom 

Brings in the champion honour on my part. 

Against your vain assault. 
Bee. Here, take my ring : 

My house, mine honour, yea, my life be thine, 

And I'll be bid by thee. 
DiA. When midnight comes, knock at my chamber window; 

I'll order take, my mother shall not hear. 

Now will I charge you in the band of truth. 



154 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View, 

When you have conquei-'d my yet maiden bed, 

Eemain there hut an hour, nor sjpeak to me : 

My reasons are most strong ; and you shall know them 

When back again this ring shall be deliver'd : 

And on your finger, in the night, I'll put 

Another ring ; that, what in time proceeds, 

May token to the future our past deeds. 

Adieu, till then ; then, fail not. 

This plot (which is the old artifice practised by Isabella and 
Mariana upon Angelo in "Measure for Measure'^) is successful^ 
and Helena^s marriage is consummated according to the tenour of 
the challenge. Moreover, the whole contract is fulfilled by 
Helena, who not only secures Bertram's monumental ring, but 
succeeds, when he would have regained it from her in the dark, 
in replacing it by the royal signet ring which the grateful King 
had given her. After this singular nuptial rite is consummated, 
a scene takes place (Act IV. Scene 3), in which two lords, who 
have just arrived from France to inform Bertram of Helena^s 
death, thus deliver themselves : — 

1 LoED. Sir, his wife, some two months since, fled from his house : her 
pretence is a pilgrimage to Saint Jaques le grand, which holy undertaJcing, 
with most austere sanctimony, she accomplished ; and, there residing, the 
tenderness of her nature became as a prey to her grief ; in fine, made a 
groan of her last hreath, and now she sings in heaven. 

2 LoED. How is this justified? 

1 LoED. The stronger part of it by her own letters, which makes ter 
story true, even to the point of her death : her death itself, which could 
not be her ofSce to say is come, was faithfully confirmed by the rector of 
the place. 

2 LoED. Hath the Count all this intelligence ? 

1 LoED. Ay, and the particular confirmations, point from point, to the full 
arming of the verity. 

2 LoED. I am heartily sorry that he'll be glad of this. 

That these gentlemen performed their mission by delivering 
to Bertram the news of his wife^s death, is seen in the following 
expression of his joy at the sad event and self-gratulation at his 
supposed success with Diana. 

Bee. I have to-night despatched sixteen businesses, a month's length 
a-piece, by an abstract of success : I have congied with the duke, done my 
adieu with his nearest ; buried a wife, mourned for her ; writ to my lady 
mother, I am returning ; entertained my convoy ; and, between these main 
parcels of despatch, effected many nicer deeds ; the last was the greatest, but 
that I have not ended yet. 



" Airs Well that Ends Well." 



155 



He does not succeed^ however^ in getting- a new interview 
with Diana, while Helena, having remained long enough in 
Florence to assure herself that her nuptial interview with 
Bertram had been fully blessed as she desired^ takes Diana and 
that young lady's mother under her protection, as witnesses of 
what had been performed, and with them sets out for France 
by the way of Marseilles. The Italian war being over, Bertram, 
about the same time, also starts for home, and, taking the direct 
route, post haste, arrives there first. His calculations are, that 
the renown he had won in Italy, along with the influence of his 
mother, now that his wife is dead, may obtain the forgiveness of 
the King. In this he is correct, but, just as he is about being 
betrothed by his 'majesty to a new lady, Diana and her mother, 
who likewise have arrived, are ushered into the King's presence 
to stop proceedings. Bertram thereupon does not hesitate to 
imitate the detestable perfidy of Angelo, in ^^ Measure for 
Measure,^' by denouncing Diana as " a common creature of the 
camp," with whom he " had sometimes laughed ;" but at last 
Helena comes in to clear the whole matter up, just in the nick 
of time, by an unblushing avowal before the entire court, of the 
active part which she has borne in this most vulgar performance. 
Bertram is, of course, immediately forgiven by the Kino, in 
order that Helena may be made happy ; while Diana Capulet is 
recompensed for the very questionable help she rendered Helena 
in the midnight encounter, by having one of the King's young 
noblemen assigned to her. And thus all ends well, save the 
sorry soiling which these young ladies suffered through their 
dirty paths.' 

Nevertheless, such are the caprices of Shakespearian critics 
and commentators, that Coleridge, one of the ablest of them, 
regards Helena as "^the loveliest of Shakespeare's characters." 
For my part, I cannot regard her as anything but an amorous 
Amazon, who, while living beside Bertram at the Castle of Rou- 
sillon, had kindled from the mere magnetism of his physical 

* Of the character of Bertram, Doctor Johnson says, " I cannot reconcile 
my heart to Bertram ; a man noble without generosity, and young without 
truth; who married Helena as a coward and leaves her as a profligate. When 
she is dead by his unkindness, he sneaks home to a second marriage ; is accused 
by a woman whom he has wronged, defends himself by falsehood, and is dis- 
missed to happiness." 



156 Shakespeare, from an A7nericaii Point of View. 

neighbourhood, and pursued till she possessed him. She hits 
upon the cure of the King merely as a medium of her desires^ 
and so frank is she with her motive, that she admits it to the 
Countess : — 

My lord your son made me to think of this, 
Else Paris, and the medicine, and the king 
Had from the conversation of my thoughts 
Happily been absent. 

Elze, like Coleridge, tells us that Helena is valued " on 
account of her moral purity, her honesty, her clear understanding, 
her devotion, and her beauty;''^ and he calls our attention to 
the fact that, as soon as the '^ masculine activity '' which was 
inspired by her object, has been attained, '^ she relapses into the 
unselfish humility of a woman,^'' and becomes entirely passive to 
her lord. Now, it strikes me, that just such a development of 
tranquillity as hers may be seen in every case, when a desperate 
energy has been completely satisfied. I may be thought harsh, 
after all that has been written of the delicate loftiness of Helena^s 
character by so many critics ; but I have a purpose that must not 
be baffled by the halo which surrounds our poet^s genius, nor 
awed by the apparent authority of commentators, who are mere 
devotees around a shrine. For the correctness of my measure- 
ment of the morals of this bold and unscrupulous young woman, 
I refer the reader especially to the shocking dialogue in which 
she indulges with that filthy camp-follower, ParoUes, in the very 
first scene where she presents herself before the audience. 
Though she knows this fellow to be an unprincipled scoundrel 
and notorious debauchee, she opens an obscene conversation with 
him in a corner, and encourages it so grossly that every reader of 
the slightest moral sensibility must shrink at it with irrepressible 
disgust. It cannot be reprinted even for illustration, and with 
those who peruse the text, the conclusion is irresistible, that a 
young woman who could find agreeable pastime in such lascivious 
allusions, must have pushed after Bertram on pure material 
impulsion, and contrived his assignation with Diana under the 
smouldering stimulation of the same coarse fire. It is not too 
much to say, that it is doubtful if any domicile in England or 
America could be found, where unfortunate females find a resi- 
dence, at which such language as Helena uses to Pa roll es, could 



" AlVs Well that Ends Well." 157 

be heard at large. Well mig-lit Mrs. Jameson, while erroneously- 
subscribing to " the beauty of the character of Helena/^ denounce 
the details which surround her " as shocking to our feelings.^'' 
And well, also, may the wise Gervinius confess, at the end of all 
his panegyric, that " few readers, and still fewer female readers, 
will believe in Helena^'s womanly nature, ''■' even after they have 
read his explanations and have found them indisputable. 

The above analysis of the character of Helena brings us again 
to the comprehension of the difficulty which Shakespeare always 
experienced when endeavouring to portray a laclij. As far as we 
have now followed him, through twelve of his comedies, he has 
not yet been successful in one delineation. Miranda, who is 
gentle, pure and beautiful, is a mere filmy and poetic dream. 
Isabella is a spotless and celestial grandeur ; the rest of his girls 
are a crude, rude, hoyden, and rowdy set, with a bar sinister 
always running through their composition. Helena is a tooman, 
it is true, but a woman of a stripe which the courtly Bacon 
would hardly have presented to us as a lady. It is the Countess, 
to whom we are indebted for our extravagant estimation of t 
purity of Helena-'s character; but had that kind-hearted and 
most excellent old lady heard her lewd fencing-match with the 
profligate Parolles, she would not have expressed such an opinion 
of her purity again. 

Upon the point of the religion of Shakespeare, as exhibited in 
the text of this play, we have already had two illustrations, one 
in Helena^s letter of departure, and another in the allusion made 
by two lords, to the holy pilgrimage she made to the shrine of St. 
Jaques le grand. We find still another in their reference to 
her subsequent and saint-like death. Bertram has also the 
reverential line, — 

Althougli before the solemn priest I have sworn, 

and the widow Capulet says to Helena^ — 

Come, pilgrim, I will bring you 
Where you shall host : of enjoined penitents 
There's four or five, to great St. Jaques bound. 
Already at my house. 

The clown gives out religious symptoms also. In Act I. 
Scene 3, he says, — 

If men could be contented to be what they are, there were no fear in mar- 



158 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

riage : for young Charhon, the Puritan, and old FoT/sam, tJie Papist, Jioio- 
soe'er their hearts are severed in religion, their Leads are both one. They 
may jowl horns together, like any deer i' the herd. 

Here is a happy equality of derision^ which makes the clown 
distinctly a neutral in doctrine ; so that^ when he comes to say, 
afterwardSj " Though honesty be no Puritan, yet it will do no 
hurt ; it will wear the surplice of humility over the black gown 
of a big heart;" and with a still more ribald tongue utters the 
contrasted scandal of — 

As the nun's lip to the friar's mouth. 

The manner in which these reflections are balanced, between both 
sects, make them of no absolute significance. Nothing is more 
likely, however, than that this last expression is the interpolation 
of some actor, compiler, or small printer ; for, it is thoroughly 
well-known that introductions of this sort, which were intended 
to hit simply the humour of the hour, were always numerous in 
the Shakespeare text, from one source and another. In the face, 
therefore, of our poet's invariable reverence for the Roman 
Catholic clergy — for this is the sole instance (save one, in" King 
John " which I have already discussed) in all of our poet's works 
where friars are alluded to with levity or reprobation. This motley 
quip being thus off-setted must, therefore, be taken for what it 
is worth. Still, I do not believe it to be Shakespeare's line. 
The number of the CatlioUc Progress, of London, for April, 1875, 
remarks upon this subject : "If a ribald clown finds a fitness 
between ' a nun's lip and a friar's mouth,' it is no proof that 
Shakespeare himself believed it was the ordinary thing for the 
religious of both sexes to use improper familiarities with each 
other. Things which suit a certain character he is not particular 
about saying, even though they do, in some measure, pamper 
vulgar prejudices against the faith." 

As to the legal acquirements of Shakespeare, so far as this 
play is concerned, Lord Campbell finds a striking proof, in the 
incident where the King claims to dispose of the hands in 
marriage, of certain feudal lords, under what is known as the 
temtre of chivalry. This tenure created a wardship of minors, to 
which class, it appears, Bertram belonged. I do not see, how- 
ever, why Shakespeare could not have learned as much as this 
from Hplinshed, or from the current dramatic works and his- 



'' AW s Well that Ends Well r 159 

tories of his time. In his absorption of mind on the above 
point, the Lord Chief Justice seems to have quite overlooked a' 
speech which our poet puts into the mouth of Parolles, in Act 
IV. Scene 3. 

Paeolles. Sir, for a quart d'ecu he will sell the/ee simple of his salvation : 
the inheritance of it, and cut the entailment from all remainders and a per- 
petual succession of it, in perpetuity. 

Having, however, escaped his lordship's legal learning on this 
subject, I have not the slightest intention to inflict the reader 
with my views upon it. 



i6o Shakespeare, from ait American Point of View. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

"twelfth night; or, what you will/^ 

The date of the production of this play is fi;s:ed^ pretty satis- 
factorily, at 1601-S, and the origin of the serious portion of the 
story is ascribed to a novel, from the Italian, by Bandello. It is 
one of Shakespeare's most perfect and charming- comedies, and 
seems to owe its title to the fact of its having been performed 
first, either on Twelfth Night, or during the convivial season of 
Shrovetide. The title seems, however, to have been so small a 
consideration of the author, that he practically leaves it to the 
reader, or, rather, to his audience, by adding to its first title that 
of, ^^ What You Will;" or, as Dowden suggests, "Anything 
You Like to Call It/^ It contributes numerous illustrations to 
the inquiry which we have before us, but more especially upon 
the point of the probable religion of Shakespeare, than upon any 
other. Upon this point its marks are very strong. Hunter,' 
an able and most reliable authority, is of the opinion that the 
main purpose of this play was " to bring into disrepute certain 
transactions of a party of Puritans of the time, who, in 1599, 
made themselves very ofiensive by some popular delusions, which 
had taken a strong hold of the public mind.'''' Hunter, there- 
fore, believes that it was the design of Shakespeare to satirize 
that sect in the person of Malvolio, who, says Hunter, is " a per- 
son not moved to cheerfulness by any innocent jest, who casts 
a malign look upon every person and everything around him, 
and who, under a show of humility, hides a proud and tyrannical 
heart.''^ " It was intended,^' he continues, " that Malvolio should 
be of a formal, grave, and solemn demeanour, and, as to his 
attire, dressed with a Quaker-like plainness, which would heighten 

^ " Life, Studies, and Writings of Shakespeare," by Joseph Hunter, a Fellow 
of the Society of Antiquaries, and Assistant Keeper of the Public Eecords. 
London, 18<15. 



" Twelfth Night; or, What Yoze. Will." i6i 

the comic effect when he afterward decked himself with all manner 
of finery when he sought to please^ as he supposed, his mistress/' 
Finalljj says Hunter, " Though in other plays of Shakespeare, 
we have indirect and sarcastical remarks on the opinions or 
practices by which the Puritan party in the Reformed Church of 
England were distinguished, it is in this play that we have his 
grand attack upon them. Here, in fact, there is a systematic 
design of holding them up to ridicule, and of exposing to public 
odium what appeared to him to be the dark features in the 
Puritan character. ... In Malvolio's character Shake- 
speare^s intention was to make the Puritan odious ; in the 
stratagem of which he is the victim, to make him ridiculous/' 

We have seen for ourselves that Shakespeare distinctly indulges 
this design against the Puritan preacher and pedant in " As You 
Like J-t" while, in direct contrast, he expresses the greatest 
respect and reverence for Catholic clergymen and the Catholic 
faith. The same contrasted expression will be found in the play 
before us. The first line we have exhibiting this fact, is an 
allusion, by one of the courtiers of the love-sick Duke, to Olivia, 
who, still mourning at the end of several years for her only 
brother's death, has -refused to receive a love-message from his 
Grace : — 

VaIiEntine. So please my Lord, I miglit not be admitted, 
But from her handmaid do retm-n this answer : 
The element itself, till seven years' heat, 
Shall not behold her face at ample view ; 
Sut, like a cloistress, she will veiled walk : 
* * all this to season, 

A brother's dead love. 

Again, in Act II. Scene 3, we have the following : — 

SiE Toby Belch, Maeia, and Sie Andeew. 

SiE To. Possess us, possess us ; tell us something of him. 

Mae. Marry, sir, sometimes he is a kind of Puritan. 

Sie And. 0, if I thought that, I'd beat him like a dog. 

Sie To. What, for being a Puritan ? Thy exquisite reason, dear knight ^ 

Sie And. I have no exquisite reason for't, but I have reason good 
enough. 

Mae. The devil a Puritan that he is, or anything constantly but a time- 
pleaser ; an affection'd ass. 

In Act IV. Scene 2, we have the following : — 



1 62 Shakespeare^ from an American Point of View. 

SiE Toby Belch, Maeia, and Clown as Sie Topas the Farson, tvith 
Malvolio locked up in an adjoining darTc room, 

SiE To. Jove bless thee, master parson. 

Clown {as Sir T.) Bonos dies. Sir Toby ; for, as tbe old bermit of Prague, 
tbat never saw pen and ink, very wittily said to a niece of King Gorboduc, 
That, that is, is ; so I, being master parson, am master parson. For what is 
tbat, but that ? and is, but is ? 

SiE To. To him, Sir Topas. 

Clown {as Sir T.) What, bo, I say — peace in this prison ! 

SiE To. Tbe knave counterfeits well : a good knave. 

Mal. {in an inner chamher)). Who calls there? 

Clown. Sir Topas, tbe curate, who comes to visit Malvolio, the lunatic. 

Mal. Sir Topas, Sir Topas, good Sir Topas, go to my lady. 

Clown. Out, hyperbolical fiend ! how vexest thou this man ! talkest thou 
nothing but of ladies ? 

SiE To. Well said, master parson. 

Mal. Sir Topas, never was man thus wronged ; good Sir Topas, do not 
think I am mad ; they have laid me here in hideous darkness. 

Clown. Fye, thou dishonest Sathan ! I call thee by tbe most modest 
terms ; for I am one of those gentle ones tbat will use tbe devil himself with 
courtesy. Say'st thou that house is dark ? 

Mal. As bell. Sir Topas. 

Immediately succeeding this, and in the very next scene, in 
respectful contrast with the Puritan paces of the mock Sir Topas, 
Olivia, accompanied by a priest, enters upon a scene where her 
lover, Sebastian, is soliloquising upon some conjugal entertain- 
ment she had extended to him the night before : — 

Enter Olivia and a Friest. 
Oli. Blame not this baste of mine : If you mean well, 

Now go with me, and with this holy man, 

Into the chantry by : there, before him. 

And underneath that consecrated roof. 

Plight me tbe full assurance of your faith ; 

Tbat my most jealous and too doubtful soul 

May live at peace. He shall conceal it. 

Whiles you are willing it shall come to note ; 

What time we will our celebration keep 

According to my birth. What do you say ? 
See. Til follow this good man, and go with you ; 

And, having sworn truth, ever wUl be true. 
Oli. Then lead the way, good father ; — And heavens so shine. 

That they may fairly note this act of mine ! 

Sebastian and Olivia are then duly married, as it was time 
hey should be ; but, being temporarily separated in a succeeding 



" Twelfth Night; or, What You Wilir 163 

scene_, and Olivia falling* in with. Viola the sister of Sebastian, 
while the latter was still in male attire, ag-ain mistakes the 
latter for the brother. Viola, of course, denies the conjugal 
imputation, whereupon, losing her patience, Olivia sends for the 
priest who had just married them, with — ■ 

Call forth the lioly father. 

Enter Attendant and Priest. 

0, welcome, father ! 
Father, I charge thee, by thy reverence, 
Here to unfold (though lately we intended 
To keep in darkness, what occasion now 
Eeveals before 'tis ripe) what thou dost know, 
Hath newly past between this youth and me. 
Peiest. Jl contract of eternal bond of love. 

Confirm d hy mutual joinder of your hands, 

Attested by the holy close of lips, 

Strengthen d by inter changement of your rings ; 

And all the ceremony of this compact 

Seal'd in my function, by my testimony : 

Since when, my watch hath told me, toward my grave 

I have travell'd but two hours. 

This is an exact and technical description of a Catholic mar- 
riage, which ceremony, unlike the Protestant ritual, is regarded 
as a sacrament by the Romish Church. The same forms are 
observable in the cases of Benedick and Beatrice, and are also 
alluded to in Bomeo and Juliet. The precision with which the 
terms of the contract are above recited, indicate pretty clearly 
that Shakespeare was married under those religious forms 
himself. 

There is one circumstance which I cannot refrain from noticing' 
before disposing of this play, though it is rather out of the line 
of my inquiry. I allude to the compliment which Shakespeare 
more than once pays to grey eyes, which, during the whole of 
the Elizabethan period, were regarded as a distinguishing mark 
of female beauty ; because, of course, the eyes of Queen Elizabeth 
were grey. Shakespeare first confers these eyes upon Julia in the 
"Two Gentlemen of Verona;'" he next gives them to Thisbe, by 
a hint in " Bomeo and Juliet ; " but he lodges them squarely, 
and with distinct significance upon Olivia, his parag'on of beauty. 
In her own inventory of her charms, as playfully given to Viola, 
Olivia says, — 



164 Shakespeare, fro77i an American Point of View. 

" I will give out divers schedules of my beauty. It shall be inventoried ; 
and every particle and utensil labelled to my will — as, item, two lips indif- 
ferent red ; item, two grey eyes, with lids to them ; item, one neck, one chin, 
and so forth.'' 

The inventory being thus summed up, the following exquisite 
lines occur : — 

YiOLA. 'Tis beauty truly blent, whose red and white 

Nature's own sweet and cunning hand laid on : 
Lady, you are the cruell'st she alive. 
If you will lead these graces to the grave, 
And leave the world no copy. 

Act I. Scene 5. 

T have but to add that Lord Chief Justice Campbell finds 
no evidences of the legal acquirements of Shakespeare in 
^^ Twelfth Night, or What You Will.^^ 



THE WINTER S TALE. 



This play is one of the most finished of Shakespeare's pieces. 
It is pretty well ascertained that it was written as late as 1610, 
six years before our poet's death, and was played in the following 
year. It was not published, however, until the folio of lG3ei, 
which had so many of his dramas for the first time set " in the 
custody of tj-^pe.'' We have the old story again about the plot, 
which, it is agreed, on all sides, was taken from the " Pleasant 
History of Dorastus and rawina,'' a novel, published in 1588 by 
Thomas Green, and subsequently named " Pandosto.'^ Shakespeare 
has altered the names of the characters ; he has also added the 
parts of Antigonus, Paulina, and Autolycus, and suppressed some 
circumstances in the original story. In other respects, he has 
adhered closely to the novel. The errors of representing Bohemia 
as a maritime country, with a sea-coast, and Delphos as an island, 
are not, however, " attributable to Shakespeare,^' says Harness, 
" but to the original from which he copied.'-* Such geographical 
blunders could hardly have proceeded from Lord Bacon, who was 
not only too learned a scholar, but had been too much of a 
traveller to be their victim. 

The story of " The Winter's Tale " is one of jealousy ; a 
jealousy deeper, more intense, more unreasoning, more capricious, 
and, if possible, more baseless than the madness of "Othello;'' 



" The Wi7tkrs Tale." 165 

and no one can read the character of Leontes along with that of 
Othello, without coming- to the conclusion that our poet^s own 
bosom, under the deceptions of some London traitress, had been 
the boiling fountain of the lines — 

That cuckold lives in bliss, 
Who, certain of his fate, loves not his wronger, 
But 0, what damned minutes tells he o'er 
Who dotes yet doubts, suspects yet strongly loves ! 

The first expressions in this play bearing upon our points are 
those of Leontes to Camillo, in the second scene of the first act, 
where the former, just imbued with suspicions against Hermione, 
is beginning to meditate the murder of Polixenes. These lines 
themselves may be said to emit a dim religious light : — 
I have trusted tbee, CamiUo, 
With all tbe nearest things to my heart, as well 
My chamber councils ; wherein, priest-like, thou 
Sast cleansed my bosom ; I from thee departed, 
Thy penitent reform' d. 

The next instance is an allusion by the clown to the company 
which are coming to grace Perdita^s rural party. After conning 
them over, he says, — 

There is but one Puritan among them, and he sings psalms to hornpipes. 

Farther on, Perdita's supposed father, an old shepherd, having 
been threatened by Polixenes with death, thus mourns his 
fate : — 

But now 
Some hangman must put on my shroud, and lay me 
Where no priest shovels in dust. 

Our next illustration bears upon Shakespeare^s adoration of 
princes, and his contrasted estimation of ordinary people : — 

Camillo. To do this deed. 

Promotion follows. If I could find example 
Of thousands that had struck anointed Icings 
And flourish'd after, I'd not do it : but since 
Nor brass, nor stone, nor parchment, bears not one, 
Let viUany itself forswear't. 

" Upon this passage,''-' says Hunter, " Sir "William Blackstone 

founded an argument to prove that 'The Winter^s Tale^ 'could 

not have been written in the reign of Elizabeth, inasmuch as she 

was one who had struck, not an anointed king, indeed, but an 

12 



1 66 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

anointed queen, in the person of the Queen of Scots/ " Let me 
take this occasion to say that, if this argument of Blackstone's 
be good to exhibit the repugnance of Elizabeth, how much 
stronger must the allusion have operated as a repulsion to Bacon 
(had he been the writer of this play), who wrung from Elizabeth 
her reluctant consent to Mary^s execution. 

Farther on, in Act IV., Polixenes having discovered that his 
son. Prince Florizel, is engaged in marriage to Perdita, the lost 
daughter of Leontes (yet supposed to be a shepherdess) thus 
berates him for the baseness of his yearnings : — 

" Mark your divorce, young sir. 
Whom son I dare not call ; thou art too base 
To be acknowledged. Thou, a sceptre's heir, 
That thus affect'st a sheep-hook ! * 

* * And thou, fresh piece 

Of excellent witchcraft, who, of force, must know 
The royal fool thou cop'st with, 

■j^ ^ JE> 

•?(• w ^ 

I'll have thy beauty scratch'd with briers, and made 
More homely than thy state. * * 

* * If ever, henceforth, thou 
These rural latches to his entrance open. 

Or hoop his body more with thy embraces, 
I will devise a death as cruel for thee 
As thou art tender to 't.'' 

It being discovered soon after, however, that Perdita is a 
King^s daughter, we at once hear of — 

"The majesty of the creature, in resemblance of the mother; the 
affection of nobleness, which nature shows above her breeding; and 
many other evidences proclaim her, with all certainty, to be the king's 
daughter." 

In contrast to the above strain I pass to the remark of Autoly- 
cus, who says to the shepherd and clown, when they are relating 
their original discovery of the babe Perdita, — 

Let me have no lying ; it becomes none but tradesmen. 

I may add, at this point, that our poet makes one of the 
gentlemen at the court of Polixenes speak of Julio Romano, the 
celebrated Italian painter, (who was the Raphael of Shake- 
speare's day,) as a sculptor — a mistake which the travelled and 
scholarly Sir Prancis Bacon could hardly have fallen into. 

Perdita, every one will be happy to recognize as the purest and 



" The Winter s Tale!' 167 

sweetest female character, who, at the same time, partakes of the 
gentle, genial qualities of breathing woman, which our poet 
has yet drawn. Her language is exquisitely beautiful, and 
effuses from her like the breath of an angel, filled at the same 
time with the wholesome warmth of a woman. She never ceases 
to be a shepherdess, while still a shepherdess ; but, though she 
seems to be dipped in fresh milk and to smell of the meadow, 
the inimitable grace imparted by a perfect nature makes her 
move among her companions like a sylvan goddess. So 
thoroughly imbued is she with the spirit of modesty that, 
though given to the culture of all sorts of flowers, she refuses to 
illegitimately graft 

A gentler scion to the wildest stock, 

because this process shocks her sense of propriety. Polixenes 
reasons to her in favour of grafting contrasted plants as 

An art 
WMch does mend nature, — change it rather : but 
The art itself is nature. 

Peedita. So it is. 

Polixenes. Then make your garden rich in gilliflowers, 
And do not call them bastards. 

Pekdita. I'll not put 

The dibble in earth to set one slip of them : 
No more than, were I painted, I would wish 
This youth should say, 'twere well. 

That there is no prudery in this, but only a natural delicacy of 
soul, we are warranted in saying, from the involuntary caution 
which she gives her foster-brother, the clown, when he announces 
that he is about to bring in to her feast, with his pedlar's pack, 
that ribald rogue and pickpocket Autolycus, to sell his wares and 
at the same time to sing for the party : — 

Forewarn him that he use no scurrilous words in 's tunes. 

With this we kiss Perdita, and reluctantly take leave of her ; 
pausing only upon the previous matter to remark, that the one 
person of the dramatis personcs of " The "Winter's Tale^' who, al 
the while, meets with the most unvarying prosperity, even in the 
perpetration of his crimes, to say nothing of the tranquil enjoy- 
ment of their profits, is the pickpocket, liar, and profligate 
Autolycus ! Truly, this again revives our suspicions that Shake- 



1 68 Shakespearey from an American Point of View. 

speare, though he possibly had a good heart, was but lightly 
burdened with moral principle or conscience. 

On the subject of the legal acquirements of Shakespeare, as 
exhibited in '^The "Winter's Tale/' Lord Chief Justice Campbell 
says,— 

" There is an allusion in Act I. Scene 2, to a piece of English 
law procedure, which, although it might have been enforced till 
very recently, could hardly be known to any except lawyers, or 
those who had themselves actually been in prison on a criminal 
charge, — that, whether guilty or innocent, the prisoner was 
liable to pay a fee on his liberation. Hermione, trying to 
persuade Polixenes, King of Bohemia, to prolong his stay at the 
court of Leontes, in Sicily, says to him, — 

You put me off with llmter vows ; but I, 

Though you would seek t' unsphere the stars with oaths, 

Should yet say, " Sir, no going." * * 

Force me to keep you as a prisoner, 

Not like a guest ; so you shall pay your fees 

When you depart, and save your thanks. 

But in this I do not agree with his lordship. Hermione, in 
her use of the vfox^fees, doubtless alluded to the habitual largess 
distributed by parting guests, and especially by a king. It is 
absurd to suppose that she knew anything ohoxxt jail fees. Lord 
Campbell continues : — 

" I remember when the Clerk of Assize and the Clerk of the 
Peace were entitled to exact their fee from all acquitted prisoners, 
and were supposed in strictness to have a lien on their persons 
for it. I believe there is now no tribunal in England where the 
practice remains, excepting the two Houses of Parliament ; but 
the Lord Chancellor and the Speaker of the House of Commons 
still say to prisoners about to be liberated from the custody of- 
the Black Rod or the Serjeant-at-Arms, ^You are discharged, 
paying your fees' 

" When the trial of Queen Hermione, for high treason, comes 
off, in Act III. Scene 2, although the indictment is not 
altogether according to English legal form, and might be held 
insufficient on a writ of error, we lawyers cannot but wonder at 
seeing it so near perfection in charging the treason, and alleging 
the overt act committed by her 'contrary to the faith and 
allegiance of a true subject.' 



" The Winter s Tale!' 169 

" It is likewise remarkable that Cleomenes and Dion, the 
messengers who brought back the response from the oracle of 
Delphi, to be given in evidence, are sworn to the genuineness of 
the document they produce almost in the very words now used 
by the Lord Chancellor, when an officer presents at the bar of 
the House of Lords the copy of a record of a court of justice : — 

You here shall swear * * 

That you, Cleomenes and Dion, have 

Been both at Delphos ; and from thence have brought 

The seal'd-up oracle, by the hand delivered 

Of great Apollo's priest ; and that since then 

You have not dared to break the holy seal, 

Nor read the secrets in 't." 

To me, these evidences of Shakespeare's legal attainments, 
though endorsed as such by Lord Campbell, appear to be very 
light and commonplace, and such only, as any man of extensive 
reading and authorship could hardly help acquiring, without 
having even served as a scrivener or clerk in an attorney's office. 
The paying of jail-fees by a discharged culprit, or the usual veri- 
fication of a paper, are such obvious details as would have forced 
themselves upon the observation of any idler in a dull country- 
town like Stratford, particularly if he were in the habit, either of 
attending at the courts or visiting the taverns; and it, therefore, 
was not necessary that Lord Chief Justice Campbell should 
have gone to the extent of reminding us of Shakespeare's im- 
prisonment for deer-stealing, to account for his familiarity with 
the practice of prison-fees. What shall we say, however, of the 
legal perception and acumen of a great lawyer like Lord Chief 
Justice Campbell, who will wring a theory of abstruse learning 
from these surface details, and overlook such an incident as 
Paulina's rescuing the new-born princess out of prison, against 
every principle of law, on the flimsy pretext that the unborn 
infant, not having been condemned along with the queen, was not 
amenable to any process of restraint that could be lodged against 
it in the jailor's hands. Let us observe the circumstances. 

The Queeil, Hermione, under the effects of Leontes' jealousy, 
had been thrown into prison, precedent to trial, and, being in an 
advanced state of pregnancy, is delivered of a child. Paulina, 
a distinguished lady of the court, goes to see her, but is 
informed by the keeper that he is under express orders that 



170 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

no person whatever shall be allowed to speak to her majesty, 
except in his presence. Paulina then asks to see Emilia, one of 
the Queen's waiting- women, who, being brought out, is thus 
addressed by her : — 

Dear gentlewoman, how fares our gracious lady ? 
Emil. As well as one so great, and so forlorn, 

May hold together : on her frights, and griefs 

(Which never tender lady hath borne greater). 

She is, something before her time, deliver'd. 
Paul. A boy ? 
Emil. A daughter, and a goodly babe, 

Lusty, and like to live ; the queen receives 

Much comfort in 't : says my poor prisoner, 

1 am innocent as you. 

Paulina then asks that the infant may be brought to her, but 
the keeper interposes : — 

Keep. Madam, if 't please the Queen to send the babe, 

I know not what I shall incur, to pass it. 

Having no warrant. 
Paul. You need not fear it, sir : 

The child was prisoner to the womb ; and is. 

By law and process of great nature, thence 

Free'd and enfranchised : not a party to 

The anger of the King ; nor guilty of. 

If any be, the trespass of the Queen. 
Keep. I do believe it. 
Patjl. Do not you fear : upon 

Mine honour, I will stand 'twixt you and danger. 

Here is a fine doctrine, to prevail in an almost absolute 
monarchy. This most successful of all female lawyers, Paulina, 
claims that the new-born babe of the imprisoned Queen has 
such an inherent right to personal hberty that it may demand, 
through its next friend, that it shall be passed out of prison, 
not for the purposes of nurture, but purely on its abstract 
personal right of liberty; and that babe, too, a princess, and 
subject, consequently, not only to special laws of the realm 
governing the title to the crown, but also to the peculiar 
custody and authority of the King, who is, at the same time, its 
father. And yet Lord Campbell, who occupies his attention 
with forms of verification and jail-fees, does not perceive this 
monstrous violation of the spirit, the science, and the philosophy 
of law, as well as of common sense. 



The Histo7dcal Plays. 171 



CHAPTER XIX. 

THE HISTOUICAL PLAYS. 

" The Winter's Tale •'' finishes the Cotnedies, which, as we have 
seen, are fourteen in number. The next group is denominated 
Histories, of which there are ten. These are succeeded by thirteen 
Tragedies; making a total for the Shakesperian dramas, of thirty- 
seven. 

In taking leave of the comedies, I may remark that, while we 
find a vast amount of evidence in them, that the writer was deeply 
imbued with the doctrines and sentiments of the Church of 
Rome, we find nothing favouring the theory of his Protestantism. 
Indeed, all of his religious utterances seem to be the spontaneous 
breathings of a Catholic soul, and our entire scrutiny of this 
series of the plays has produced but three indifi'erent expressions 
to raise even a momentary question to the contrary. 

Nor have we found, in going through these fourteen comedies, 
one generous aspiration in favour of popular liberty, always so 
hard for genius to repress ; or one expression of sympathy with 
the sufferings of the poor; nay, hardly one worthy sentiment 
accorded to a character in humble life. And here it may be 
again observed, that aristocratic tendencies are more especially 
fostered by the Romish Church than by any other. Finally, 
we find no support, down to this point, for the theory that 
Sir Francis Bacon was the author of the Shakespearian plays. 
On the contrary, it seems impossible that a man of Lord Bacon's 
gravity and learning could have achieved the facility in vulgar 
tavern wit, with which these plays abound; — could ever have 
laved his mind, as it were, in the sorry jests, the puerile equi- 
voques, and the paltry puns (that wretched wit of sound) which 
form so large a portion of the conversation of Stephano and 
Trinculo in the play of " The Tempest -" which characterize the 
colloquy of Speed and Launce in the " Two Gentlemen of 



172 Shakespeare^ from an American Point, of View. 

Verona ;" of Sir Hug-h^ of Doctor Caius, and of Falstaff and his 
vagabond retainers in ''The Merry Wives of Windsor/' Of 
Lucio and the Clown in "Measure for Measure ;^^ of the two 
Dromios in '^ The Comedy of Errors •" of Dogberry and Verges, 
and of a deal of the smart repartee between Benedick and 
Beatrice in ''Much ado about Nothing/' Of indeed, the 
greater part of what is said in " Love's Labour's Lost ;" of 
the jargon of Bottom and his mates in " Midsummer Night's 
Dream ;" of much of the clack of the two Gobbos in " The 
Merchant of Venice ;" of the talk of Touchstone, of Eosalind 
and the exiled courtiers, in " As You Like It ;" also of the 
lewd sparring of Katharine and Petruchio, in "The Taming 
of the Shrew/' And, most notably and deplorably, the obscenity 
indulged in by Helena and the poltroon Parolles, in " All's Well 
that Ends Well" 

It is much more difficult to believe, therefore, that an austere 
philosopher, like Bacon, could have familiarized himself with such 
pitiful stuff as this, than it is to credit William Shakespeare, the 
play-actor, for his smattering of law, his superficial knowledge of 
medicine, a,nd his apparent proficiency in the rhetoric of courts. 
Of course, those who credit Shakespeare for the correctness of his 
court phraseology could hardly have been at court themselves. 
And yet, of this class are the critics who pretend to judge familiarly 
of kings; and who, while thus giving away the argument, stultify 
themselves still farther, by the assumption, that Shakespeare 
merely comes up to the level of mere court nothings, even when his 
superb language is at its best. Equally absurd seems to me to 
be the theory of that other class of critics, composed mostly of 
mere scholars, who will not tolerate the idea that any one can 
have learning, who is not an utter bookworm like themselves. 
These are the pundits who flatly deny all scholarship, and even 
all foreign languages, to Shakespeare, simply because they cannot 
find that he acquired these accomplishments through a regular 
course at school. These savans, while in one breath they claim 
Shakespeare to be a miracle of human genius, in the next deny 
to him the most ordinary gifts of observation and of memory; 
which faculties, working silently together, always result in that 
supervening climax of intelligence which the ignorant call intui- 
tion. This class of critics cannot account for the scraps of Latin, 
French, Spanish, and Italian which are scattered through the 



The HistoiHcal Plays. 173 

comedies ; as if the quick, lambent, and retentive mental faculties 
of Shakespeare — the outranking poetic genius of the world — 
are to be measured by the qualities of ordinary men. It is com- 
mentators of this class who, weakened by too much attention to 
details, lose all vigorous range of observation, and consequently 
become incapable of comprehending such miracles of acquisition, 
so far as the acquirement of foreign languages is concerned, as 
are shown by Elihu Burritt and William Shakespeare. The five 
or six languages, which Shakespeare seems to have partially 
picked up, during the eight years of comparative idleness he 
passed at Stratford was, after all^ a far inferior exploit to 
the acquisition of the forty or fifty languages and tongues by 
Elihu Burritt of America. The signs and features of a foreign 
language, under the lambent ecstasy of intellects like these, re- 
semble the vivid function of the photographic plate^ which in an 
instant receives and fixes images that are to endure for ever. 

Moreover^ every one knows, who has ever mastered even the 
rudiments of a foreign language, that nothing is easier than to 
scan, offhand, all the leading features of a story from a foreign 
page, so as to furnish, as did the Italian school of romance to 
our poet, all the hints, if not all the incidents, necessary for 
a play. If these incidents were not transcribed exact, so much 
the more creditable for our author's invention; and if exact sen- 
tences from the original were at any time desirable, phrase-books 
might have been resorted to, as books of attorneys' practice 
were doubtless pressed into his rapid service for his terms of 
law. The trouble with the commentators has therefore too often 
been, that they were either awed from a plain estimation of their 
idol by too rapt an adoration of him ; or, bewildered by their 
own scholarship, they have undervalued his practical attain- 
ments, and erroneously set him down as an unlettered man. 
And, after all, what are the most of these old scholars and book- 
worms in the clever world of to-day? Steam, electricity, the 
revelations by Science of the heavens and the earth, have annihi- 
lated whole libraries of philosophic dreams, and placed more true 
knowledge in the hands of unpretending merchants and mere 
boys, than dwelt behind the beards of Zoroaster or Confucius, or 
ever belonged to the old alchemists, who were supposed to have 
learning and science in valet-like attendance, as familiar spirits. 
Nay, young men who now get the bulk of their knowledge from 



174 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

the newspapers, can afford almost to smile at the truisms of Lord 
Bacon, and wonder how he obtained his vast renown by uttering 
such obvious facts as formed the staple of his essays. But while 
Bacon has thus receded from the estimation of his period, no one 
has succeeded in approaching, much less transcending, the con- 
ceptions of the mind of William Shakespeare ! The one (the 
Philosopher) laboured through the tedious paths of learning to 
approximate towards the truth ; the Poet caught his conceptions 
direct from the creative Throne, and transmitted them to man- 
kind through the unerring medium of the soul. Shakespeare is, 
therefore, always true and fresh and new. Nothing can " stale 
his infinite variety ;'' and as the generations roll before him, each 
after each, echoes the accord, — 

" That he was not of an age, but for all time." 

I trust I may not be considered as speaking slightingly of 
Bacon, in thus contrasting his qualities with those of Shake- 
speare. Lord Bacon, for his period, was as much the pioneer of 
thought as Shakespeare was the pioneer of soul ; and the misfor- 
tune of Bacon, in being subjected to the instructed judgment of 
the present world is, that he is now obliged to meet with an 
audience which has, for more than two centuries, been drinking, at 
third and fourth hands, of the wisdom of which he was the sur- 
prising and original fountain. " These two incomparable men,'^ 
says Lord Macaulay, '' the Prince of Poets and the Prince of 
Philosophers, made the Elizabethan age a more glorious and 
important era in the history of the human mind than the age of 
Pericles, of Augustus, or of Leo.''^' 

That Shakespeare and Bacon were thus distinct in their sepa-' 
rate monarchies of mind, is in no way more evident than by the 
fact that, though the plays ceased to appear in 1613, three 
years before Shakespeare^s death, the Essays continued until 
1625, which was the year before Bacon^s death. Indeed, in that 
latter year, which was the sixty-fifth of Bacon's age, he issued 
an edition of twenty of them, embracing the subjects of Truth, 
Revenge, Adversity, of Simulation and Dissimulation, of Envy, 
of Boldness, of Seditions and Troubles, of Travel, of Delays, of 
Innovations, of Suspicion, of Plantations, of Prophecies, of Masques 
and Triumphs, of Fortune, of Usury, of Building, of Gardens, of 

* " Essay on Burleigh and his Times/' vol. v. p. 611. 



The Historical Plays. 175 

Anger, and of the Vicissitude of Things. These were his pet 
productions,, and that there may be no mistake^ as to his own 
estimation of the superiority of these over any other of his labours, 
he deckres, in the dedication to this edition of 162'5j as follows : — 
'' I do now publish my Essays, which, of all my other works, 
have been most current. For that, as it seems, they come home 
to men^s business and bosoms, I have enlarged them both in 
number and weight ; so that they are indeed a new work.^' 

And be it observed^ that this declaration was made by Bacon 
two years after the collated plays of Shakespeare had been pub- 
lished mider the poet^s name in the folio of 1623. How is it 
possible, then, for us to believe, that a man so covetous of literary 
fame as Bacon, who laboriously prepared his Essays for the press 
in the sixty-fifth year of his age, and who revised the " Advance- 
ment" twelve separate times, never lent a hand to the arrangement 
of the Shakespearian folio of 1623, if he had really been the author 
of its plays ? Or, stranger still, that, as the author of these plays, 
he had not discrimination enough to know that they were, beyond 
all comparison, his greatest works, and had already caught the 
mind of the world to an extent which promised a fame greater 
than could be expected for anything he had ever done. Surely 
no man possessed of the comprehensive intellect and towering 
genius indicated in the Essays and the Plays combined, could 
have made the mistake of leaving his reputation with posterity 
solely to the custody of his subordinate productions. 

In passing from the comedies I will take this opportuniiiy to 
quote the opinion of Dr. Johnson as to our poet^s merit in this 
branch of dramatic composition. " In tragedy,''^ says the Doctor, 
'' he is always struggling after some occasion to be comic, but in 
comedy he seems to repose, or to luxuriate, as in a mode of thinking 
congenial to his nature. In his tragic scenes there is always 
something wanting, but his comedy often surpasses expectation 
or desire. His comedy pleases by the thoughts and the language, 
and his tragedy, for the greater part, by incident and action. 
His tragedy seems to be skill, his comedy to be instinct.''^ Now, 
whil-e I do not entirely agree with the learned Doctor in all of the 
above opinion, he must have every careful reader^s concurrence 
largely in the following : — 

" Shakespeare,- with his excellences, has likewise faults, and 
faults sufficient to obscure and overwhelm any other merit. I 



176 Shakespeare, from an- Anieidcan Point of View. 

shall show them in the proportion in which they appear to me, 

without envious malignity or superstitious veneration His 

first defect is that to which may be imputed most of the evil in 
books or in men. He sacrifices virtue to convenience, and is so 
much more careful to please than to instruct, that he seems to 
write without any moral purpose. From his writings, indeed, a 
system of social duty may be selected, for he that thinks reason- 
ably must think morally ; but his precepts and axioms drop 
casually from him ; he makes no just distribution of good or 
evil, nor is always careful to show in the virtuous a disappro- 
bation of the wicked ; he carries his persons indifferently through 
right or wrong, and at the close dismisses them without further 
care, and leaves their examples to operate by chance. This fault 
the barbarity of his age cannot extenuate ; for it is alwaj'^s a 
writer^s duty to make the world better, and justice is a virtue 
independent of time or place. .... In his comic scenes he is 
seldom very successful, when he engages his characters in 
reciprocation of smartness and contests of sarcasm ; ■ their jests 
are commonly gross, and their pleasantry licentious ; neither his 
gentlemen nor his ladies have much delicacy, nor are sufficiently 
distinguished from his clowns by any appearance of refined 
manners. Whether he represented the real conversation of his 
time is not easy to determine -, the reign of Elizabeth is commonly 
supposed to have been a time of stateliness, formality and 
reserve ; yet, perhaps the relaxations of that severity were not 
very elegant. There must, however, have been always some 
modes of gaiety preferable to others, and a writer ought to 

choose the best A quibble is to Shakespeare, what luminous 

vapours are to the traveller ; he follows it at all adventures ; it 
is sure to lead him out of his way, and sure to engulf him in the 
mire. It has some malignant power over his mind, and its 
fascinations are irresistible. Whatever be the dignity or pro- 
fundity of his disquisitions, whether he be enlarging knowledge, 
or exalting affection, whether he be amusing attention with 
incidents, or enchanting it in suspense, let but a quibble spring 
up before him, and he leaves his work unfinished. A quibble is 
the golden apple for which he will always turn aside from his 
career, or stoop from his elevation. A quibble, poor and barren 
as it is, gave him such delight that he was content to purchase 
it by the sacrifice of reason, propriety, and truth. A quibble 



The Historical Plays — " King Johny 177 

was to him tlie fatal Cleopatra for which he lost the world, and 
was content to lose \\i." 

To these remarks I will only add, that to me, Shakespeare, in 
comedy, has frequently seemed to be only Shakespeare in his 
cups. In tragedy, he is a Titan bearing his sublime front above 
the clouds ; in comedy, too often an unbuttoned Satyr, grovelling 
amid the slops and fragments of the table. A God, perhaps at 
times, but too frequently a God reeling with animal relaxation, 
apparently to rest his brain. 



"KING JOHN. 

This first of the historical plays of Shakespeare was founded on 
an anonymous play, called " The Troublesome Reign of King 
John, with the Discovery of King Richard Coeur de Lion's base 
son j vulgarly named the Bastard Faulconbridge ; also, the 
Death of King John at Swinstead Abbey.'' Shakespeare followed 
this old tragedy pretty closely, though he was careful to exclude 
a scene of the original which irreverently alludes to '' the merry 
nuns and brothers " when Faulconbridge is practising his ex- 
tortions on the clergy. The exclusion of this scene is attributed 
by Gervinius, from whom I quote the above expression, to a 
very different motive from the one which I fancy is most obvious. 
The German commentator, who is evidently a good Protestant, 
says, " But Shakespeare did not go so far as to make a farce of 
Faulconbridge's extortions from the clergy : the old piece here 
oflPered him a scene in whicli merry nuns and brothers hurst forth 
from the opened coffers of the ' hoarding allots' a scene certainly 
very amusing to the fresh Protestant feelings of the time ; but 
to our poet's impartial mind the dignity of the clergy, nay, even 
the contemplativeness of cloister life, was a matter too sacred 
for him to introduce it in a ridiculous form into the seriousness 
of history." ^ 

From the light heretofore thrown upon the religious faith of 
our poet, I read the motive for the exclusion of this Catholic 
scandal differently from the learned German Professor. Shake- 
speare's motive here seems to be located in the sensitiveness of 

^ '• Essay on Burleigh and his Times," vol. v. p. 611. 



178 Shakespeare, fi'-om an American Point of View. 

a Catholic for the decorums of his sect — a religious sensitiveness 
whichj be it observed^ did not operate to protect the " dignity " of 
the Protestant clergy, when derision was to be cast upon Sir 
Hugh, "the jack priest ^^ of the "Merry Wives ;^' upon Sir 
Nathaniel, the curate, in " Love's Labour's Lost ; " upon Sir 
Oliver Martext, the Puritan preacher, in " As You Like It ; '^ 
or upon the illusory Sir Topaz, in " Twelfth Night/' 

Hunter, like Gervinius, also exhibits the common concern of 
the English commentators to protect Shakespeare from the sus- 
picion of Roman Catholic convictions. Nevertheless, the evi- 
,dences of Catholicism in this play insensibly operate upon even 
Hunter's mind, and develope their force as follows : — 

" There is so much in this play which shows that the mind of 
the poet was intent, when he wrote it, on alSairs connected with 
the Church, that it may be submitted as a probability, not a;t 
once to be rejected, that in thus placing Hubert, in imagination, 
in a scene of horror, to prepare him for conceiving and executing 
a deed of horror, the poet had in his mind what was alleged to 
be a practice of the Jesuits of the time. They had their ' Chamber 
of Meditation,' as they called it, in which they placed men who 
were ' to undertake some great business of moment, as to kill 
a king, or the like.' 'It was a melancholy dark chamber,^ 
(says Burton, in his ' Anatomy of Melancholy,' ) ' where he had 
no light for many days together, no company, little meat, 
ghastly pictures of devils all about him, and by this strange 
usage they made him quite mad, and beside himself,' The 
word convertite" continues Hunter, " which occurs in this play, 
is an ecclesiastical term, with a peculiar and express meaning, 
distinct from convert. It denotes a person who, having relapsed, 
has been recovered, and this, it will be perceived, is the sense in 
which Shakespeare uses it." 

It is at this point of our scrutiny of the play of King John 
that the argument of Knight on the line " Purchase corrupted 
pardon of a man," forces itself upon our attention ; but inasmuch 
as that has been pretty thoroughly discussed in the first division 
of this work, we will refer the reader back to pages 53, 53, 54, 
55, 56, and 57 inclusive, as a proper continuation of this chapter. 
These extracts close our illustrations from " King John" on the 
subject of religion. We come now to those which exhibit Shake- 
speare's proclivity to deify and worship kings, and demonstrate 



The Historical Plays — " King Johnr 1 79 

his utter want of sympathy with any movement tending- to 
popular liberty. The first and most striking- proof this play 
gives of this latter tendency is, that in the same spirit which 
directs him to protect the Roman Catholic faith from derision 
(by leaving out from the old play, which was his model;, the 
scene that scandalized the nuns and monks), he refrains from 
making- the slightest allusion, in his version of '^ King John," to 
the signing- of Magna Charta ; an event, unquestionably, the most 
momentous as well as the most dramatic of his entire reign. 
In the same spirit and policy, says Gervinius, ^' he has softened 
for the better, the traits of the principal political characters, and 
has much obliterated the bad. His John, his Constance, his 
Arthur, his Philip Augustus, even his Elinor, are better people 
than they are found in history. . . . The base previous history 
of Elinor and Constance is touched upon only in cursory in- 
sinuations, or is entirely overlooked. . . . King John himself is 
kept greatly in the background, and even his historical character 
is softened and refined by Shakespeare." ^ 

The following- may be classed among our poet's spontaneous 
laudations of the great. 

Act II. Scene 2. 

K. Philip. Before we will lay down our just-borne arms, 

We'll put thee down, 'gainst whom these arms we bear, 
Or add a royal number to the dead. 
Gracing the scroll, that tells of this war's loss, 
With slaughter coupled to the name of kings. 

Bastaed. Sa ! majesty, hoio high thy glory towers, 

Wlien the rich blood of kings is set on fire. 

* * * 

Why stand these royal fronts amazed thus ? 

^ ^ w 

By heaven, these scroyles [scabs or citizens] of Angiers 
Flout you, kings ! 

An' if thou hast the mettle of a Jcing. 

Act III. Scene 1. 
Constance. Thy word 

Is but the vain breath of a common man : 
Believe me, I do not believe thee, man : 
I have a king's oath to the contrary. 



^ Gervinius, pp. 356-7. 



i8o Shakespeai^e, from an Ainerican Point of Viezv. 

Pand. {spealcing to Kings Philip mid John). 

Hail, you anointed deputies of heaven. 

* * * 

Iv. John. What earthly name to interrogatories 

Can task the free hreath of a sacred hing 1 

* * * 
K. Philip, Where revenge did paint 

The fearful difference of incensed Icings. 

Act lY. Scene 3. 

Before the Castle. Present — Pembroke, Salisbuet, Bigot, and 

Patilconbeidge. 

Enter Hubeet. 

Hub. Lords, I am hot with haste in seeking you. 

Arthur doth live ; the king hath sent for you. 

Sal. O, he is bold, and blushes not at death : — 
Avaunt, thou hateful villain, get thee gone ! 

Hub. I am no villain. 

Sal. Must I rob the law .P [Drawi7ig his sword. 

Bast. Your sword is bright, sir ; put It up again. 

Sal. Not till I sheath it in a murderer's skin. 

Hub. Stand back. Lord Salisbury, stand back, I say ; 

By heaven, I think my sword's as sharp as yours : 
I would not have you, lord, forget yourself, 
Nor tempt the danger of my true defence ; 
Lest I, by marking of your rage, forget 
Your worth, your greatness, and nobility. 

Big. Out, dunghill! darst thou hrave a nohleman? 

Hub. Not for my life : but yet I dare defend 
My innocent life against an emperor. 

Here ends our illustrations from this play except those bearing 
upon the legal acquirements of Shakespeare ; and these again 
bring us to Lord Chief Justice Campbell, 



LEGAL ACQUIEEMENTS AS SHOWN IN ^^ KING JOHN."^ 

Lord Campbell, in his review of the play of King John 
from the above point of view, expresses himself somewhat dis- 
appointed that he has not found more, of what he calls legalisms 
in Shakespeare^s dramas, founded upon English history. He 
accounts for this paucity of legal reference, however, by the -fact, 
that " our great dramatist/-' has in these histories " worked upon 
the foundations already laid by other men, who had no technical 
knowledge,'^ " Yet,^' he continues^ " we find in several of the 



Legal Acquirements as shown in ^^ King yohny \ 8 i 

* Histories ' Shakespeare's fondness for law terms ; and it is still 
remarkable, that, whenever he indulges this propensity, he 
uniformly lays down good law/^ His lordship gives as a strong 
illustration of this fact, the decision by King John, between 
Hubert and Philip Faulconbridge upon the question of bastardy 
pleaded by the younger brother, against Philip, who, however, like 
Shakespeare's eldest daughter, Susanna, had made his appearance 
after the nuptials of parents, 

" Full fourteen weeks before the course of time." 

The King legally decides that Philip is legitimate, and is there- 
fore his father's lawful heir, because his 

" Father's wife did after wedlock bear him." 

So far, however, from receiving this as a substantial evidence of 
Shakespeare's law learning, it seems to me to evince no more legal 
knowledge than ought to be expected from any well-educated youth 
of twenty-one. The next legal illustration which Lord Campbell 
gives is found within the lines spoken by the Duke of Austria, 
upon giving his pledge to support the title of Prince Arthur 
against King John : — 

" Upon thy cheek I lay this zealous kiss, 
As seal to this indenture of my love" 

Lord Campbell regards this as a purely legal metaphor, which 
might come naturally from an attorney's clerk, who had often 
been an attesting witness to the execution of deeds. I quite 
agree with his lordship in this view, but the expression might 
just as naturally have come from any intelligent merchant or 
poetaster of the time. 

His lordship winds up his analysis of " King John" with a 
reference to some of the king's language, which I have already 
given, as evidence of the true ancient doctrine of the supremacy 
of the crown over the pope. Upon this pointy his lordship 
and I do not disagree. 

13 



1 82 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View, 



CHAPTER XX. 

" RICHARD II." 

This play was written in 1593-4, and first publislied in 1597. 
Malone says it was published in quarto no less than five several 
times during Shakespeare^s life. " The first edition appeared in 
1597_, without the scene of the deposing of King Richard, which 
was inserted in the edition of 1608," during the reign of King 
James — the deposition of Richard having been suppressed in an 
earlier play of " Richard II.," in concession to the suspicion of 
Elizabeth, that such a scene would familiarize the public with out- 
rages on the royal power, and thus afiect her own safety on the 
throne. Another version has it, that the scene of the deposition 
was the result of an intrigue of Essex, the favourite of Elizabeth, 
about the time of his Jesuit plot and disloyal Irish expedition 
(1598), for which he lost his head. 

Gervinius says upon this subject, " When the Earl of Essex, 
in 1601, wished to excite the London citizens to an insurrection, 
in order that be might remove his enemies from the person of the 
queen, he ordered his confidential friend. Sir Gilly Merrick, and 
others, to act the tragedy of " Richard II." in public streets and 
houses, previous to the outbreak of the conspiracy, in order to in- 
flame the minds of the people. Elizabeth, hearing of this per- 
formance, alluded to it in conversation, calling herself Richard 
II. There is no doubt that the play employed by these con- 
spirators was the older " Richard II." Eor Shakespeare^s drama, 
though certainly a revolutionary picture, is of so mild a character, 
and demands such hearty sympathy for the dethroned king, and 
most especially in the very scene of the deposition, that it would 
appear unsuitable for such an object; besides, in the editions 
before 1601, the whole scene of the deposition of Richard in the 
fourth act, although it must have been written by the poet at the 
outset, was not even printed, and certainly, therefore, was not 
acted in Elizabeth^s reign." 



''Richard II r 183 

For the story, or rather for the facts of this drama, Shake- 
speare has closely followed the historical chronicle of Holinshed, 
except, says Rowe, that "he has sought to remedy the defect, 
which consists in the short period embraced in the action of the 
drama (the two years between 1398 and 1400), by representing 
Isabel, Richard's Queen — who was only twelve years of age when 
he was deposed — with the speech and actions of maturity/' 
" Shakespeare's genius," continues this writer, " has been lavishly 
poured out upon the character of Richard, but though he could 
not entirely pass over his bad qualities, they are lightly touched." 

It is the historical dramas, and particularly those of " Richard 
II.," and of the First and Second Parts of " Henry IV.," and of 
" Henry v.," which Shakespeare makes the especial instruments for 
his inculcation of subservience to the nobility and king. Though 
the Houses of York and Lancaster are the contending parties 
during the entire period covered by these four and the three suc- 
ceeding plays, he manages to divide his compliments between the 
nobles of those respective houses, with most obsequious equality, 
and so keeps on, till the bloody stream of the Roses unites in 
the person of Henry VII. But while doing this, our poet never 
evinces the slightest interest in the sufferings of the masses, 
whose lives are but the fuel of the strife. And, surely, the 
people endured wrongs enough during the whole of this turbu- 
lent period to enlist some slight sympathy from the great genius, 
before whose piercing and poetic eye the bloody panorama passed 
in its fresher force. In addition to being torn from their un- 
reaped fields, and cast into the volcano of the civil strife year by 
year, their moral condition was being constantly aggravated by 
new oppressions and new shames. Shakespeare is forced to 
admit this portion of the indictment against King Richard II. in 
his text; and while he recites, in vivid words, these terrible 
exactions, our straining thoughts are constantly disappointed of a 
single note of pity or of protest. His thoughts, his admiration 
and his impulses, are always with the nobles ; his worship ever 
with the king. The following sketch, by Gervinius, of Richard's 
wild and profligate expenditure, and of his heartless and un- - 
principled grinding not only of the masses, but of every man 
he dared to plunder, presents a forcible picture of the criminal 
character of his government, and likewise of the deplorably 
sunken condition of the masses. 



184 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

"Impoverished by his companious, Richard sees his coffers 
empty, he has recourse to forced loans, to extortion of taxes, and to 
fines ; and at last he leases the English kingdom as a tenure to his 
parasites — no longer a king, only a landlord of England. A 
traitor to this unsubdued land, he has, by his contracts, resigned 
the conquests of his father. At length he lays hands on private 
property, and seizes the possessions of the late old Lancaster and 
of his banished son, thus depriving himself of the hearts of the 
people and the nobles. The ruin of the impoverished land, the 
subversion of right, the danger of property, a revolt in Ireland, 
the arming of the nobles in self-defence; all these indications 
allow us to observe, in the first two acts, the growing seed of re- 
volution which the misled king had scattered. The prognostica- 
tion of the fall of Richard II. is read by the voice of the people 
in the common signs of all revolutionary periods '^ (Act II. 
Scene 4) : — 

Eich men look sad, and ruffians dance and leap, 

The one, in fear to lose what they enjoy, 

The other, to enjoy by rage and war. 

'' Nevertheless," continues the learned German Professor, 
" the peculiar right of the king is not esteemed by Shakespeare 
more sacred than any other. ... As soon as Richard had 
touched the inheritance of Lancaster, he had placed in his hands, 
as it were, the right of retaliation. The indolent York thus 
speaks to him immediately : — 

Take from time his rights ; 
Let not to-morrow then ensue to-day ; 
Be not thyself, for how art thou a king, 
But by fair sequence and succession ? 

'^ He tells him that he ' plucks a thousand dangers on his head,' 
that he loses ^a thousand well-disposed hearts,' and that he 
' pricks his tender patience to those thoughts, which honour and 
allegiance cannot think.' " 

That is to say, " the peculiar right of the king, which usually 
stands over all, is not esteemed more sacred than any other," 
when it invades the rights of any branch of the royal family, 
or clashes with those of any of the nobility. But in contrast with 
the sensitiveness of our poet in regard to the equities of property, 
we look to him in vain for one word of protest against the inhu- 
manities and oppressions practised upon poverty. 



''Richard II r 185 

In scanning these sponiJ&neous expressions in our poet^s text 
we get a look, as it were, into his unguarded soul, and we are 
constantly impressed with the conviction that he wrote as if un- 
conscious he was writing " for all time ■*•' and as if labouring only 
for the hour. His main motive seemed to be to dramatize for 
the swarm who brought him their sixpences and shillings, and 
who had a vulgar yearning to look upon a lord and to lave in the 
sacred atmosphere of even illusory noblemen and kings. He 
worked for money, for a solid home in Stratford, and for a Shake- 
spearian coat-of-arms. He was a thoroughly pleasant, good- 
natured man, but apparently without any active generosity, and, 
I regret to conclude, not burdened heavily with moral principle. 
In short, an easy-going, kind-hearted, beaming epicure, who 
had a god in his bosom, without knowing it. When he bent 
over his desk and set his thoughts flowing downward through 
his pen, that god, thus summoned, flamed at the electric touch 
and descended to the earth. The bones of the man William 
Shakespeare lie as dust within the tomb at Stratford, but the 
god which inhabited him in life remains with us to-day. 

But let us proceed to the illustrations of Shakespeare^s 
catholic and aristocratic tendencies, afibrded by this play. 

The first note I have marked upon the margin is a religious 
evidence uttered by the Duke of Norfolk, which occurs in the 
first scene of the first act, when Norfolk confesses to having 
meditated the murder of the Duke of Lancaster : — 

NoEFOLK. For you, my noble lord of Lancaster, 
The honourable father to my foe. 
Once did I lay in ambush for your life, 
A trespass that doth vex my grieved soul ; 
^ut, ere I last received the sacrament, 
I did confess it ; and exactly begg'd 
Your grace's pardon, and, I hope, I had it. 

Next comes an illustration of the worship of an ''anointed^' 
king, which occurs in the next scene, between John of Graunt 
and the Duchess of Gloster : — 

Gaunt. Heaven's is the quarrel : for heaven's substitute, 
Sis deputy anointed in his sight. 
Hath caused his death ; the which, if wrongfully, 
Let heaven avenge ; for I may never lift 
An angry arm against his minister. 



1 86 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

In this same colloquy, tlie Duchess remarks^ — 

That which in mean men we entitle patience, 
Is pale, cold cowardice in noble breasts. 

In Scene 4 we have our first g-limpse; in this play, of Shake- 
speare's contempt for the common people, in the following 
description by King Kichard of the obsequious court which his 
dangerous rival, Bolingbroke, was paying to the populace : — 

K. EiCH. He is our cousin, cousin ; but 'tis doubt, 

When time shall call him home from banishment. 

Whether our kinsman come to see his friends. 

Ourself, and Bushy, Bagot here, and Green, 

Observ'd his courtship to the common people : — 

How he did seem to dive into their hearts. 

With humble and familiar courtesy : 

What reverence he did tJiroio away on slaves ; 

Wooing poor craftsmen with the craft of smiles. 

And patient underbearing of his fortune, 

As 'twere, to banish their affects with him. 

Off goes his bonnet to an oyster-wench ; 

A brace of draymen bid — &od speed him well. 

And had the tribute of his supple Tcnee, 

With — " ThanJcs, my countrymen, my loving friends ;" 

As were our England in reversion his. 

And he our subjects' next degree in hope. 

Geeen. Well, he's gone ; and with him go these thoughts. 
Now for the rebels, which stand out in Ireland ; — 
Expedient manage must be made, my liege ; 
Ere further leisure yield them further means. 
For their advantage, and your highness' loss. 

K. KiCH. We will ourself in person to this war : 

And, for our coflFers — with too great a court. 

And liberal largess — are grown somewhat light, 

We are enforced to farm our royal realm ; 

The revenue whereof shall furnish us 

For our affairs in hand : If that come short, 

Our substitutes at home shall have blanJc charters; 

Whereto, when they shall know what men are rich. 

They shall subscribe them for large sums of gold, 

And send them after to supply our wants ; 

For we will make for Ireland presently. 

In the first scene of the second act, Gaunt^ in a patriotic 
eulogium upon his country, delivers the following : — 

This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle. 
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, 



''Richard IF' 187 

This other Eden, demi-paradise ; 

This fortress built by Nature for herself, 

Against infection and the hand of war ; 

This happy breed of men, this little world, 

This precious stone set in the silver sea, 

Which serves it in the oiBce of a wall, 

Or as a moat defensive to a house, 

Against the envy of less happier lands ; 

This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England, 

This nurse, this teeming womh of royal Icings, 

Fear'd hy their breed, andjamous by their birth, 

Renowned for their deeds as far from home, 

(For Christian service and true cliivalry) 

As is the sepulchre in stubborn Jewry 

Of the world's ransom, blessed Mary's Son; 

This land of such dear souls, this dear, dear land, 

Dear for her reputation through the world, 

Is now leased out (I die pronouncing it) 

Like to a tenement or pelting farm. 

Then, while rebuking the wasteful King from his dying bed, 
he goes on — 

Now, He that made me, knows I see thee ill, 
111 in myself to see, and in thee seeing ill. 
Thy death-bed is no lesser than thy land, 
Wherein thou liest in reputation sick : 
And thou, too careless patient as thou art, 
Commit'st thy 'nointed body to the cure 
Of those physicians that first wounded thee. 

In Act II. Scene 2, Northumberland appeals to his brother 
rebels to 

Redeem from broking pawn the blemish'd crown. 
Wipe off the dust that hides our sceptre's gilt. 
And make high majesty look like itself. 

Of course, I do not insist that these natural expressions about 
" high majesty ,-'' &c., when correctly assigned to the characters, 
go for much ; but the fact that such reverence and worship are 
invariable with our author, and that his expressions of contempt 
for Man, as mere man, are also equally invariable, indicate 
together, that such expressions are the spontaneous and prevailing 
sentiments of the writer himself; and, in that point of view, 
they go for a great deal. 

In the same act and scene the following occurs in a room in 
the palace, — present : Queen, Bushy, Bagot, Green, and York : — 



1 88 Shakespeare, fi^om an American Point of View. 

Enter a Servant. 
Seev. My lord, I had forgot to tell your lordship : 

To-day, as I came by, I called there ; 

But I shall grieve you to report the rest. 
YoEK. What is it, Jcnave ? 
Seev. An hour before I came, the duchess died. 
YoEK. God for his mercy ! what a tide of woes 

Comes rushing on this woeful land at once ! 

I know not what to do : — I would to God 

(So my untruth had not provoked him to it,) 

The king had cut off my head with my brother's. 

What, are there no posts despatch'd for Ireland ? 

How shall we do for money for these wars ? 

Come, sister — cousin, I would say : pray, pardon me. 

Go, fellow {to the Servant), get thee home ; provide some carts, 

And bring away the armour that is there. 

In Scene 3 of the same act, York rebukes the banished 
Bolingbroke for invading the kingdom before his sentence is 
repealed, with 

Com'st thou because the anointed king is hence ? 

That portion of the ceremony of a coronation which consists 
in "anointing''^ a newly-crowned monarch with the holy oil had 
obviously made a deeply religious impression upon Shakespeare^s 
mind, to judge from his frequent reference to it. 

In Act III. Scene %, Hichard, just returned from his Irish 
expedition, learns, as soon as he has landed on the coast of Wales, 
that the banished Bolingbroke has returned in arms. His weak 
nature at once sinks under the alarming prospect, and, like all 
cowards, he seeks comfort in his superstitious hopes : — 

Not all the water in the rough rude sea 
Can wash the balm from an anointed hing : 
The breath of worldly men cannot depose 
The deputy elected by the Lord : 
For every man that Bolingbroke hath press'd. 
To lift shrewd steel against our golden crown, 
God for his Richard hath in heavenly pay 
A glorious angel: then, if angels fight, 
Weak men must fall ; for heaven still guards the right. 
* * * 

AuMEELE. Comfort, my liege ; remember who you are. 
K. ElCH. I had forgot myself : Am I not king ? 

Awake thou sluggard majesty ! thou sleep'st. 

Is not the king's name forty thousand names ? 



''Richard II r 189 

Arm, arm, my name ! a puny subject strikes 
At thy great glory. — Look not to the groxmd. 
Ye favourites of a king ; are we not high ? 
Higli be our thoughts : I know, my uncle York 
Hath power enough to serve our turn. But who 
Comes here ? 

Again he droops : — 

* * * 

For heaven's sake, let us sit upon the ground. 
And tell sad stories of the death of kings : — 
How some have been deposed, some slain in war. 
Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed ; 
Some poison'd by their wives, some sleeping kill'd ; 
All murder'd : — For within the hollow crown, 
That rounds the mortal temples of a king 
Keeps death his court : and there the antic sits, 
ScoflBng his state, and grinning at his pomp ; 
Allowing him a breath, a little scene 
To monarchize, be fear'd, and kill with looks ; 
Infusing him with self and vain conceit, — 
As if this flesh, which walls about our life, 
Were brass impregnable, and, humour 'd thus, 
Comes at the last, and with a little pin 
Bores through his castle wall, and — farewell king ! 

Act III. Scene 3. 
A Plain before Flint Castle, where KiNa Eichaed has taken refuge. 
Enter Bolingbroke and forces, York, Northumberland, and others. 
Eichaed appears upon the battlements. 

BoiiNG. See, see. King Eichard doth himself appear. 
As doth the blushing discontented sun 
From out the fiery portal of the east, 
When he perceives the envious clouds are bent 
To dim his glory, and to stain the track 
Of his bright passage to the Occident. 
YoEK. Yet looks he like a king ; behold, his eye. 

As bright as is the eagle's, lightens forth 
Controlling majesty. 
K. EiCH. We are amazed ; and thus long have we stood 

{_To Northumberland. 
To watch the faithful bending of thy knee. 
Because we thought ourself thy lawful king : 
And if we be, how dare thj' joints forget 
To pay their awful duty to our presence ? 
If we be not, show us the hand of God 
That hath dismiss' d us from our stewardship ; 
For well we know, no hand of blood and bone 



190 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

Can gripe the sacred handle of our sceptre. 
Unless he do profane, steal, or usurp. 
And though you think, that all, as you have done, 
Have torn their souls, hy turning them from us. 
And we are barren, and bereft of friends ; — 
Yet know, — my master, God omnipotent, 
Is mustering in his clouds, on our behalf. 
Armies of pestilence ; and they shall strike 
Your children yet unborn, and unbegot ; 
That lift your vassal hands against my head, 
And threat the glory of my precious crown. 
Tell Bolingbroke (for yond', methinks, he is,) 
That every stride he makes upon my land, 
Is dangerous treason : He is come to ope 
The purple testament of bleeding war ; 
But ere the crown he looks for life in peace, 
Ten thousand bloody crowns of mothers' sons 
Shall ill become the flower of England's face, 
Change the complexion of her maid-pale peace 
To scarlet indignation, and bedew 
His pastures' grass with faithful English blood. 

Scene lY. — A Garden. 
The Queen, wJio Jias overheard the Gardener describe the fall ofEiCHAED, 
comes from her concealment and exclaims, — 

Why dost thou say King Eichard is deposed ? 
Dar'st thou, thou little better thing than earth. 
Divine his downfall ? Say, where, when, and how, 
Cam'st thou by these ill tidings ? Speak, thou wretch ! 

Act lY. Scene 1. — Westminster Sail. 
BoLiNQ. In God's name, I'll ascend the regal throne. 
Bp. of Cab. Marry, God forbid ! — 

"Worst in this royal presence may I speak, 

Yet best beseeming me to speak the truth. 

Would God, that any in this noble presence 

Were enough noble to be upright judge 

Of noble Richard : then true nobless would 

Learn him forbearance from so foul a wrong. 

What subject can give sentence on his hing ? 

And who sits here, that is not Eichard's subject? 

Thieves are not judged, but they are by to hear, 

Although apparent guilt be seen in them : 

And shall the figure of God's majesty. 

Sis caftain, steward, deputy elect, 

Anointed, crowned, flanted many years. 

Be judged by subject and inferior breath. 
^ ^ # 



" Richard Iir 191 

I speak to subjects, and a subject speaks, 
Stirr'd up by heaven tbus boldly for his king. 
K. ElCH. Gentle Northumberland, 

If thy offences were upon record. 
Would it not shame thee, in so fair a troop. 
To read a lecture of them ? I£ thou would'st. 
There sJiould'st thou find one heinous article,— 
Containing the deposing of a king. 
4: * 

And water cannot wash away your sin. 
NoETH. My lord, despatch ; read o'er these articles. 

K. EiCH. Mine eyes are full of tears, I cannot see : 

And yet salt water blinds them not so much, 

But they can see a sort of traitor here. 

Nay, if I tm-n mine eyes upon myself, 

I find myself a traitor with the rest : 

For I have given here my soul's consent, 

To undech the pompous body of a king ; 

JM^ake glory base, and sovereignty a slave; 

Froud majesty, a subject ; state, a peasant. 

Act V. Scene 1. 
King Richaed [on his way to the Tower), Qtteen, and Ladies, 
K. ElCH. {to the Queen). Hie thee to Trance 

And cloister thee in some religious house : 
Our holy lives must win a new world's crown, 
Which our profane hours here have stricken down. 

Good sometime queen, prepare thee hence for France : 

Think, I am dead ; and that even here thou tak'st. 

As from my death-bed, my last living leave. 

In winter's tedious nights, sit by the fire 

With good old folks ; and let them tell thee tales 

Of woeful ages, long ago betid : 

And, ere thou bid good night, to quit their grief, 

Tell thou the lamentable fall of me, 

And send the hearers weeping to their beds. 

For why, the senseless brands will sympathize 

The heavy accent of thy moving tongue. 

And, in compassion, weep the fire out : 

And some will mourn in ashes, some coal-black, 

For the deposing of a rightful king. 

In Scene S of the above act, the pageant of Richard^ being led 
in triumph at the heels of Bolingbroke^ is thus described by the 
old York to his Duchess : — 

DucH. Alas, poor Eichard ! where rides he the while ? 



192 Shakespeare^ from an American Point of View. 

YoEK. As in a theatre, the eyes of men, 

After a well-graced actor leaves the st#ge, 

Are idly bent on him that enters next. 

Thinking his prattle to be tedious : 

Even so, or with much more contempt, men's eyes 

Did scowl on Eichard ; no man cried, God save him ; 

No joyful tongue gave him his welcome home : 

Hut dust ivas thrown upon his sacred head ; 

Which with such gentle sorrow he shook off, — 

His face still combating with tears and smiles, 

The badges of his grief and patience, — 

That had not God, for some strong purpose, steel'd 

The hearts of men, they must perforce have melted. 

And barbarism itself have pitied him : 

But heaven hath a hand in these events. 

In the next scene^ which is at Windsor Castle, where Boling- 
broke at last figures as king, the young Duke of Aumerle 
rushes into the royal presence, in order to forestall his father, 
York, in revealing a treason against his majesty. Aumerle, in 
advance of his father's arrival, confesses his intended crime, 
declares he has repented of it, and casts himself at the king's 
feet, imploring pardon. 

At this moment, and just as he has received a qualified 
forgiveness, York comes thundering at the door, and finding it 
locked — a precaution which Aumerle had taken to prevent 
interruption while he made his confession to the king — 
exclaims, — 

YoEK {outside). My liege, beware ; look to thyself ; 

Thou hast a traitor in thy presence there. 
BoLlNG. Villain, I'll make thee safe. [Drawing 

AuM. Stay thy revengeful hand, 

Thou hast no cause to fear. 
ToBK. Open the door, secure, foolhardy king : 

Shall I, for love, speak treason to thy face ? 

Open the door, or I will break it open. 

{Bolinghrohe opens the door. 

Enter Yoek. 
BoLlNG. What is the matter, uncle ? Speak ; 

Recover breath ; tell us how near is danger. 

That we may arm us to encounter it. 
Yoek. Peruse this writing here, and thou shalt know 

The treason that my haste forbids me show. 
AtJM. Remember, as thou read'st, thy promise past ; 



''Richard II y 193 

I do repent me ; read not my name there, 
My heart is not confederate with my hand. 
YoEK. 'Twas, villain, ere thy hand did set it down.— 
• I tore it from the traitor's bosom, king ; 
Fear, and not love, hege.ts his penitence ; 
Forget to pity him, lest thy pity prove 
A serpent that will sting thee to the heart. 
The Duchess, Aumerle's mother, next arrives, and throwing 
herself at the King's feet, unites in beseeching his pardon. Old 
York, however, remains obdurate, and, in rc^ly to Aumerle's 

ejaculation, — 

Unto my mother's prayers, I bend my knee, 

replies, — 

Against them both my true joints bended be. 
The King, nevertheless, forgives Aumerle; whereupon the 
Duchess, overcome with gratitude for the royal clemency, bursts 
out with 

A god on earth thou, art ! 
This scene distinctly teaches that devotion to a king is a superior 
obligation to the ties of nature. 

Finally, Richard is barbarously murdered by Sir Pierce Exton, 
by the secret orders of Bolingbroke; who, however, having 
gained his object in getting Eichard out of the way, thus 
rewards his murderer : — 

BoLlNG. Exton, I thank thee not ; for thou hast wrought 

A deed of slander, with thy fatal hand. 

Upon my head, and all this famous land. 
Exton. From your own mouth, my lord, did I this deed. 
BoiiNG. They love not poison that do poison need, 

Nor do I thee ; though I did wish him dead, 

I hate the murderer, love him murdered. 

The guilt of conscience take thou for thy labour, 

But neither my good word, nor princely favour : 

With Cain go wander through the shade of night. 

And never show thy head by day nor light. 

Lords, I protest, my soul is full of woe, 

That blood should sprinkle me, to make me grow. 

Come, mourn with me for what I do lament. 

And put on sullen black, incontinent ; 

Til make a voyage to the Koly Land, 

To wash this blood off from my guilty hand : 

March sadly after ; grace my mournings here. 

In weeping after this untimely bier. 



194 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

A fine, frank, honest Christian king is this ! 

The argument of the play of " King Richard 11/' is, on the 
one side, that an "anointed" king may devote his life to 
profligacy, may farm out his revenues to meet his pleasures, 
seize the lands and incomes of his nobles and bring the State to 
bankruptcy and ruin, without forfeiting the allegiance of the 
nobles, the respect of the people, or his right to the throne. 
On the other side, it is held by Bolingbroke and the nobles who 
take part with him, that rebellion against the kingly authority 
is justified in the aristocracy, by any attempt on the part of the 
crown to appropriate or sequester their estates. The whole 
invasion of Bolingbroke is embarked upon this latter text, and 
the most notable defect of the presentation is, that the people, 
all of whom are constantly plundered and outraged, never have 
their wrongs alluded to as a recognizable element in the picture. 
Nay, these " slaves,'^ these " craftsmen" these " subjects,'' these 
" common people," these " mean men," these " little letter things 
than earth" are only used by Shakespeare to fill up the spaces 
and make the main scene work. The broadest illustration of 
this utter contempt for the rights and sufferings of the people 
may be found, perhaps, in the words of Bolingbroke, when he 
appears at the head of the revolted nobles and insurgent forces 
before the King's castle in the third act. On that occasion he 
directs Northumberland to " go to the rude ribs of that ancient 
castle" and say, that he, Bolingbroke, has come to England in 
this warlike form, simply to recover his rights as Duke of 
Lancaster ; and then bids him to give the assurance to Eichard, 
that he 

On both bis knees dotb kiss King Eichard's hand. 
* * * 

Even at bis feet to lay my arms and power, 
Provided that my baiusbment repeal'd. 
And lands restored, be freely granted. 

Then follows a threat, on the supposition that these conditions 
be refused, which shows where the people stand and how they 
are considered, in the mind of an author who makes no 
declaration in their favour : — 

If not, I'll use the advantage of my power, 

And, lay the summer's dust with showers of blood, 

IRaindfrom the looujids of slaughter d Englishmen. 



''Richard 11." 195 

Surely the people^ in this connexion^ were worth one thought 
of consideration ; and should not have been paraded mechanically 
before the comprehension, as if they were merely so many horses 
or oxen incidental to the strife. 

A great effort has been made, in connexion with this play, by 
Nathaniel Holmes, Judge and Professor of Law in Harvard 
University, Cambridge, U.S.A., the scholarly and ingenious 
leader of the American Baconians, to prove that Bacon had 
vaguely acknowledged himself to be the author of " Richard II.,'' 
because he had admitted himself to be under the suspicion of the 
Queen, at the time when " Richard II." was being acted under 
the express patronage of Essex (1598) with the deposition scene 
in. The history of the times, however, clearly shows, through 
the records of the courts in 1600, that the matter which aroused 
the suspicion of the Queen, on the subject of the presentation to 
the public mind of the deposition of King Richard, was a pam- 
phlet published by one Dr. Hay ward in 1599, in which the story 
of that political event was insidiously put forward. Bacon was 
really thought to have secretly favoured the production of Hay- 
ward's pamphlet, and so strongly did this suspicion prevail at 
court, that even Elizabeth once angrily alluded to " something 
which had grown from him, though it went about in others' 
names." This enigmatic expression is eagerly seized upon by 
Judge Holmes as an intimation by the Queen that he. Bacon, 
had really written the offensive play, though it had been pub- 
lished under Shakespeare's name. 

It seems to be absurd that the suspicion of the Queen could 
have referred to the play, which, as a treatise on the deposition 
of a king, did not offend her successor James I., and therefore is 
not likely to have been the offensive matter which " grew from 
Bacon, but went about in other names." 

The parallelisms of language between some of the expressions 
in " Richard II." and in Bacon's " Essays," as presented by Judge 
Holmes, do not claim that amount of space from us which would 
be requisite for their presentation. They have failed to impress 
me in the least, but that no injustice may be done him by this 
summary disposal of them, I commend his ingenious volume on 
" The Authorship of Shakespeare " to the reader. It was published 
by Hurd and Houghton, New York, 1866. 



196 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

'^HENEY IV." — PART I. 

There is but little in this play or in the next (which is the 
second part or division of the same history), bearing upon the 
special points of inquiry we are engaged upon. There is enough, 
however^ as well in politics, sentiment, morals, and religion, to 
make them both important, as supports to our previous analyses, 
in each of those respects. 

The conspicuous figures of Henry IV., in both of its Parts, 
are Falstaff, Hotspur, and Prince Halj the former outranking 
both as a dramatic identity, and tempting my notice in this 
essay to so great ah extent, that I cannot refrain from expressing 
regret that the peculiar line of our examination does not take 
Falstaff in. Some future effort, however, of a different character 
from this may justify me in that pleasure. I will only pause a 
moment at this point to say, that history had given so bad a 
character to the Prince of Wales (or '^ Prince Hal," as the 
English love to call him), that our poet, in order to elevate him 
to the plane which would be requisite for the heroic action of his 
subsequent character as Henry V., ingeniously introduced the 
portraitures of Falstaff and his low companions as a foil ; and 
also to show how instinctively a royal nature would rise above 
casual degradation, as soon as touched by a noble and ambitious 
impulse. Having once created Falstaff, however, the boundless 
wit of Shakespeare, which, after all, was larger than his worship, 
made the fat knight a greater stage character than either Harry 
Percy or the Prince of Wales. 

The main theme of the First Part of ^' Henry IV." is merely 
a continuation of the political history which is begun in " Richard 
II." The strife is kept up between the nobles and the crown, 
and the subject of contention is that of their respective dignities 
and powers. The people, however, are never brought forward 



" Henry IVT — Part I. 197 

except in the form of soldiers, and then only as pawns or 
"■ creatures '' to fill the game. 

The following are the extracts which strike me in the text : — 

Act IV. Scene 3. 
Blunt. So long as out of limit and true rule 
You stand against anointed majesty. 

Act V. Scene 2. 
HoTSPUE. Arm, arm, with, speed ! and fellows, soldiers, friends, 
Better consider what you have to do. 

This is the first instance in which I find the common people 
addressed even in the name of soldiers, without some fling of 
under val uati on. 

Again Hotspur : — 

And if we live, we live to tread on kings ; 
If die, brave death, when princes die with us. 

Scene 4, 
{In the midst of battle.) 
Peince John {Pnnce Henry's hrotJier). 

We breathe too long — come, cousin Westmoreland, 
Our duty this way lies ; for God's sake, come. 

\_Exit, to re-enter the fight, as becomes a Frince. 

Prince Henry then, finding his father and Douglas engaged 
at swords^ point, calls the King off, and, after a brief combat 
with Douglas, makes the latter fly. Prince Henry next fights 
with and kills Hotspur. 

Act V. Scene 5. 
King Heney {to Worcester). 

Three knights upon our part slain to-day, 
A noble earl, and many a creature else. 
Had been alive this hour 
If like a Christian, thou hadst truly borne 
Betwixt our armies true intelligence. 



THE LEGAL POINTS. 



The first legalism found by Lord Chief Justice Campbell in 
this play is, that " the partition of England and Wales, between 
Mortimer, Glendower, and Hotspur " is conducted by Shake- 
speare in as attorney-like fashion as if it had been the partition 
of a manor between joint tenants, tenants in common, or co- 
partners. 

14 



198 Shakespeare^ from an American Point of View. • 

MoETiM. England, from Trent and Severn hitherto, 
Bj south and east is to my pai-t assigned : 
And westward, Wales, beyond the Severn shore : 
And all the fertile land within that bound. 
To Owen Glendower : 
And, dear Coz, to you, 

The remnant northward, lying off from Trent ; 
And our indentures tripartite are drawn. 
Which being sealed interchangeably — 

" It may well be imagined/' continues his lordship^ " that in 
composing this speech Shakespeare was recollecting how he had 
seen a deed of partition tripartite drawn and executed in his 
master^s office at Stratford. 

" Afterwards, in the same scene, he makes the unlearned 
Hotspur ask impatiently : — 

" Are the indentures drawn ? shall we be gone ? 

" Shakespeare may have been taught that ' livery of seisin ' 
was not necessary to a deed of partition, or he would probably 
have directed this ceremony to complete the title. 

" So fond is he of law terms, that afterwards, when Henry IV. 
is made to lecture the Prince of Wales on his irregularities, and 
to liken him to Richard II., who, by such improper conduct, lost 
the crown, he uses the forced and harsh figure, that Richard 

" Enfeoffed himself to popularity (Act III. Scene 2). 

" I copy Malone's note of explanation on this line : ' Gave 
myself up absolutely to popularity. A feoffment was the 
ancient mode of conveyance, by which all lands in England were 
granted in fee- simple for several ages, till the conveyance of lease 
and release was invented by Sergeant Moor about the year 1830. 
Every deed of feoffment was accompanied with livery of seisin, 
that is, with the delivery of corporal possession of the land or 
tenement granted in fee.^ " 

The two other lines which Lord Campbell finds to support this 
view in this play is the line last quoted, — 
Enfeoffed himself to popularity, 

And the further lines, in the fourth act, — 
He came but to be Duke of Lancaster, 
To sue his livery, and beg his peace. 



' * Henry I V. " — Part II. 199 

"henry IV." PART II. 

The Second Part of " Henry TV." followed immediately on 
the heels of the First. It was probably written in 1597^ as it is 
mentioned in Meares' " Wit's Treasury" in 1598, and contains 
an allusion to a political event which took place in 1596. It is 
but a continuation of the First Part, and carries through it the 
same tone, and, with the exception of the brilliant Hotspur and 
one or two indifferent figures, the same characters. It supplies 
us therefore with no new argument or theme, but I find it chiefly 
remarkable for its presentation, without the slightest condemna- 
tion by our poet, of one of the most monstrous and frightful 
pieces of treachery by the party he favours, which the history of 
civilization gives any record of. The murder of the sons of 
Amurath the Third, by their brother Mahomet, that took place 
in Turkey in February, 1596, and which is the political event 
above alluded to, does not begin to equal it in atrocity and 
horror. And yet Shakespeare never droops his eye with con- 
demnation of it ; nor can I find that this conduct on the part of 
our poet arouses the reprobation of any of the commentators. 

The shameful deed I speak of occurs in the first scene of the 
fourth act. The rebels who, in the First Part, had been led by 
Hotspur, Glendower, and Mortimer, were beaten at Shrewsbury, 
with the loss of Percy — 

Whose spirit lent a fire 
Even to tlie dullest peasant in his camp — 

have again made head under the Archbishop of York, the Duke 
of Northumberland, and Lords Hastings and Mowbray, supported 
by Glendower, with an army in Wales. 

The main body of these rebels, which the forces of the King 
under Prince John of Lancaster are hurrying to cope with, lie 
in Yorkshire, and are under the command of the Archbishop. 
While they stand arrayed, expecting the attack of the royal 
army, the Earl of Westmoreland comes as an ambassador from 
the royal commander, and thus opens his negotiations : — 

Act lY. Scene 1. 
West. Health and fair greeting from onr general, 

The Prince, Lord John, and Duke of Lancaster. 
Aech. Say on, my lord of Westmoreland, in peace ; 

What doth concern your coming ? 



200 Shakespeare^ from an American Point of View. 

West. Then, my lord, 

TJnto your grace do I in chief address 
The substance of my speech. If, that rebellion 
Came like itself, in base and abject routs, 
Led oa by bloody youth, guarded with rage, 
And countenanced by boys, and beggary ; 
I say, if damn'd commotion so appear 'd, 
In his true, native, and most proper shape, 
You, reverend father, and these noble lords. 
Had not been here to dress the ugly form 
Of base and bloody insurrection 
With your fair honours. You, lord archbishop, — 
Whose see is by a civil peace maintain'd ; 
Whose beard the silver hand of peace hath touch'd ; 
Whose learning and good letters peace hath tutor'd ; 
Whose white investments figure innocence. 
The dove and very blessed spirit of peace, — 
Wherefore do you so ill translate yourself. 
Out of the speech of peace, that bears such grace. 
Into the harsh and boist'rous tongue of war ? 
Turning your books to graves, your ink to blood. 
Your pens to lances ; and your tongue divine 
To a loud trumpet, and a point of war ? 

Aech. Wherefore do I this ? — so the question stands. 
Briefly to this end : 

The Archbishop then details the rebels' grievances. 
Westmoreland replies, and tenders liberal terms if they will 
lay down their arms. He addsj — 

This ofier comes from mercy, not from fear : 

For lo ! within a ken, our army lies : 

Upon mine honour, all too confident 

To give admittance to a thought of fear. 

Our battle is more full of names than yours, 

Our men more perfect in the use of arms. 

Our armour all as strong, our cause the best ; 

Then reason wills, our hearts should be as good : — 

Say you not then, our ofier is compell'd. 
MowB. Well, by my will, we shall admit no parley. 
West. That argues but the shame of your ofience: 

A rotten case abides no handling. 
Hast. Hath the prince John a full commission. 

In very ample vii'tue of his father. 

To hear, and absolutely to determine 

Of what conditions we shall stand upon ? 
West. That is intended in the general's name : 

J muse, yov, make so slight a question. 



« Henry IVr—Part II. 



20 1 



Aech. Then take, my lord of Westmoreland, this, 

For this contains our general grievances :— 

Each several article herein redress'd ; 

All members of our cause, both here and hence, 

That are insinew'd to this action, 

Acquitted by a true substantial form ; 

And present execution of our wills 

To us, and to our purposes, consign'd : 

We come within our awful banks again, 

And knit our powers to the arm of peace. • 
West. This will I show the general. Please you, lords, 

In sight of both our battles we may meet : 

And either end in peace, which heaven so frame ! 

Or to the place of difference call the swords 

Which must decide it. 
Aech. My lord, we will do so. \Tlxit West. 

MowB. There is a thing within my bosom tells me. 

That no conditions of our peace can stand. 
Hast. Fear you not that : if we can make our peace 

Upon such large terms and so absolute. 

As our conditions shall consist upon. 

Our peace shall stand as firm as rocky mountains. 

Hast. Besides the king hath wasted all his rods 
On late offenders, that he now doth lack 
The very instruments of chastisement : 
So that his power, like to a fangless lion. 
May offer, but not hold. 

The scene then changes, so as to bring the hostile commanders 
confronted with each other. 

Scene 2. — Another fart of the Forest. 

Enter from one side, Mowbeat, the Aechbishop, Hastings, and others; 
from the other side, Peince John of Lancastee, Westmoeeland, 
Officers, and Attendants. 

P. John. You are well encounter'd here, my cousin Mowbray : 
Good day to you, gentle lord archbishop. 
And so to you, Lord Hastings, — and to all. 
My lord of York, it better shew'd with you. 
When that your flock, assembled by the bell, 
Encircled you, to hear with reverence 
Your exposition on the holy text ; 
Than now to see you here an iron man. 
Cheering a rout of rebels with your drum, 
Turning the word to sword, and life to death. 
That man, that sits within a monarch's heart, 



202 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

And ripens in the sunshine of his favour, 

Would he abuse the countenance of the king ? 

Alack ! what mischiefs might be set abroach, 

In shadow of such greatness. With you, lord bishop, 

It is even so. Who hath not heard it spoken, 

How deep you were within the books of God ? 

To us, the speaker in his parliament ; 

To us, the imagined voice of God himself; 

The very opener and intelligencer. 

Between the grace, the sanctities of heaven. 

And our dull workings : 0, who shall believe. 

But you misuse the reverence of your place ; 

Employ the countenance and grace of heaven, 

As a false favourite doth his prince's name. 

In deeds dishonourable ? 



Aech. 



Good, my lord of Lancaster, 



I sent your grace 
The parcels and particulars of our grief; 
The which hath been with scorn shoved from the court. 
Whereon this Hydra son of war is born : 
Whose dangerous eyes may well be charm'd asleep. 
With grant of our most just and right desires ; 
And true obedience of this madness cured. 
Stoop tamely to the foot of majesty. 

MowB. If not, we ready are to try our fortunes 
To the last man. 

Hast. And though we here fall down. 

We have supplies to second our attempt ; 
If they miscarry, theirs shall second them ; 
And so success of mischief shall be born, 
And heir from heir shall hold this quarrel up. 
Whiles England shall have generation. 

P. John. You are too shallow, Hastings, much too shallow, 
To sound the bottom of the after-times. 

West. Pleaseth your grace, to answer them directly. 
How far forth you do like their articles. 

P. John. I UJce them all, and do allow them well : 

And swear, here, hy the honour of my blood, 
3£y father s purposes have been mistook ; 
And some about him have too lavishly 
Wrested his meaning and authority. 
'My lord, these griefs shall be loith speed redress' d; 
Upon my said, they shall. If this may please you. 
Discharge yoitr powers unto their several counties, 
As we loill ours; and here, between the armies. 



" Henry IV "—Part 11. 



2Q3 



Xiet's drink together friendly, and emhrace, 

That all their eyes may bear those toTcens home 

Of our restored love and amity. 
Arch. ItaTce your princely word for these redresses. 
P. John. I give it you, and will maintain my word : 

And thereupon I drinh unto your grace. 
Hast. Go, captain {to an officer), and deliver to tlie army 

This news of peace ; let tliem have pay, and part. 

I know, it will please them ; hie thee, captain. [_Exit Officer. 
Arch. To you, my noble Lord of Westmoreland. [Drinks. 

West. J pledge your grace : [drinks^ Sini,ifyou knew tvhat pains 

I have hestoio'd to breed this present peace, 

You would drink freely ; but my love to you 

Shall show itself more openly hereafter. 
Arch. I do not doubt you. 
West. I am glad of it — 

Health to my lord, and gentle cousin, Mowbray. \jDrinks. 
MowB. You wish me health in very happy season ; 

For I am, on the sudden, something ill. [Shouts within. 

P. John. The word of peace is render'd. Hark, how they shout ! 
MowB. This had been cheerful, after victory. 
Aech. a peace is of the nature of a conquest. 

For then both parties nobly are subdued. 

And neither party loser. 
P. John. Gro, my lord, 

And let our army be discharged too. [Exit Westmoreland. 

And good, my lord (to the Archbishop), so please you, let your 
trains 

March by us, that we may peruse the men 

We should have coped withal. 
Arch. Go, good Lord Hastings ; 

And, ex'e they be dismiss'd, let them march by. 

[Exit Hastings, 
P. John. I trust, lords, we shall lie to-night together. 

He-enter Westmoreland. 

Now, cousin, wherefore stands our army still ? 
West. The leaders having charge from you to stand. 

Will not go off until they hear you speak. 
P. John. They know their duties. 

He-enter Hastings. 

Hast. My lord, our army is dispersed already. 

Like youthful steers unyoked, they take their courses 
East, west, north, south ; or, like a school broke up, 
Each hurries towards his home and sporting-place. 

West. Good tidings, my Lord Sastings ; for the which 
I do arrest thee, traitor, of high treason : — 



204 Shakespeare^ from an American Point of View. 

And you, Lord ArcMishop, — and you, Lord Mowbray; 
Of capital treason I attach you both. 

MowB. Is this proceeding just and honourable ? 

West. Is your assembly so ? 

Aech. Will you thus break your faith 1 

P. John. I pawn d thee none. 

I promised you redress of these same grievances. 
Whereof you did complain ; lohich, by mine honour, 
L will perform with a most Christian care. 
But, for you, rebels, looh to taste the due 
Meet for rebellion, and such acts as yours. 
Most shallowly did you these arms commence, 
Fondly brought here, and foolishly sent hence. — 
Strike up our drums ! pursue the scatter d stray ; 
Seaven, and not we, hath safely fought to-day. — 
Some guard these traitors to the block of death : 
Treason's true bed, and yielder up of breath. 

Upon the conclusion of tliis treachery^ the scene passes off 
without a word of censure from our poet, to a merry interlude 
between Falstaff and Sir John Coleville, a gentleman whom the 
fortunes of war has thrown into the fat knig-ht^s hands. While 
this burlesque is going on, Prince John, Westmoreland, and 
others, yet dripping and steaming with their most heinous and 
unspeakable atrocity, come in. After enjoying the fun, West- 
moreland, who had temporarily gone out to order the royal 
forces to desist from further butchery, re-enters, and Prince 
John addresses him : — 

P. John. Noto, have you left pursuit ? 

West. Eetreat is made, and execution stay'd, 

P. John. Send Coleville, with his confederates, 

To York to present execution : — 

Blunt, lead Hm hence ; and see you guard him sure. 

\_Exeunt some with Coleville. 

And now despatch we toward the court, my lords. 

The good King, who is always wishing to make a pious 
pilgrimage to the Holy Land, but who bargained with Sir 
Pierce Exton to assassinate King Richard, and then refused to 
pay him for the deed, receives this glorious news with un- 
criticizing joy, and is ready to go to Jerusalem again. 

I think the above recapitulation fully justifies the remark 
which I have previously made, that while Shakespeare has infinite 
genius, he seems too often to be devoid of moral principle and 
conscience. 



'^ Henry IV:'—Part II. 205 

There are but few other lines which demand our attention in 
this play. The first that fits our theme occurs in the induction, 
where Rumour says, — 

My office is 
To noise abroad, — that Harry Monmouth fell 
Under the wrath of noble Hotspur's sword ; 
And that the king before the Douglas' rage ■ 
Stoop'd his anointed head as low as death. 
This have I rumour'd through the peasant towns. 

Next we have, in Act I. Scene 3, the Archbishop of York, 
thus delivering" his opinion of the people : — 

An habitation giddy and unsure 

Hath he, that buildeth on the vulgar heart. 

thou fond many ! with that loud applause 

Didst thou beat heaven with blessing Bolingbroke, 

Before he was what thou would' st have him be ? 

And being now trimm'd in thine own desires, 

Thou, heastly feeder, art so full of him, 

That thou provok'st thyself to cast him up. 

So, so, thou common dog, didst thou disgorge 

Tliy glutton hosom of the royal Michard ; 

And now thou would' st eat thy dead vomit up, 

And howVst to find it 1 What trust is in these times ! 

They that, when Eichard lived, would have him die 

Are now become enamour'd on his grave : 

Thou, that threw'st dust upon his goodly head. 

When through proud London he came sighing on 

After the admired heels of Bolingbroke, 

Cry'st now, earth, yield us that king again. 

And take thou this ! thoughts of men accurst ! 

Past, and to come, seems best ; things present, worst. 

In Act II. Scene 4, we have the following lling at a Protestant 
clergyman, through the mouth of the not very reputable Dame 
Quickly, hostess of the Boards Head tavern : — 

Hostess. Tilly -fally, Sir John, never tell me ; your ancient swaggerer 
comes not in my doors. I was before Master Tisick, the deputy, the other 
day ; and, as he said to me, — it was no longer ago than Wednesday last, — 
Neighbour Quickly, says he; — Master Duvih, our minister, was by then; 
Neighbour Quickly, says he, receive those that are civil ; for, saith he, you 
are in an ill name. 

I have but few observations to make upon these earlier illus- 
trations, but I cannot resist the remark that the theory of the 



2o6 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

Baconians^ tliafc the Lord Chancellor was ashamed to acknow- 
ledge himself as the author of the Shakespeare plays^ has a sort 
of support in the gross immorality and vile language of many 
portions of this one. For, surely, any well-bred gentleman might 
well be ashamed of the rank brothel wit and the revolting fecundity 
of obscene slang which characterize the earlier scenes of this 
play, in which Doll Tear-Sheet figures with Falstaff and Dame 
Quicldy. Actors delivering such language and figuring through 
such scenes, may be said to have naturally earned the epithets of 
" harlotry players " and of " vagabonds." In this connexion, I 
will avail myself of the opportunity, before passing from the Fal- 
staffian plays, of calling a moment^s attention to the puzzling 
character of Nym. No commentator seems to have been able to 
grasp, or to comprehend this piece of vague caprice, and, for my 
own part, I am forced to the conclusion that he must have repre- 
sented the local caricature of some well-known person — some 
amorous London alderman, perhaps — who had been caught in 
some queer scrape and possibly extricated himself with the ex- 
clamation of " that's the humour of it -" the repetition of which 
comical expression would always be good, with a local audience, 
for a laugh. Without some such surmise as this, Nym must pass 
with most persons as a puzzle, or, at best, an idiot. 

I have only to add, in passing from this play, that the legalisms 
exhibited on Shakespeare's behalf in the course of it by Lord 
Chief Justice Campbell, do not call for any special attention. 



^* Hefiry V^ 207 



CHAPTER XXII. 

''henry v." 

The date of the production of this play is fixed at 1599 or 1600. ' 
It is the opinion of some that Shakespeare approached the subject 
of Henry V. reluctantly, in consequence of its paucity of domestic 
incident, and that he finally undertook it only because he felt 
obliged to keep " the promise made at the close of the Second 
Part of ' King Henry IV./ to the effect that he would introduce 
the wars of King Henry the Fifth upon the stage, and make the 
audience merry with fair Catherine of France/^ ^ " The date of 
the authorship of the play is shown decisively /■* says Hunter, 
" to have been in 1599, by the poet's allusion, in the chorus to 
the fifth act, to the Earl of Essex's campaign in Ireland, and 
his hoped-for return, which took place in September of that 
year :— 

As, by a lower but by loving likelihood, 
Were now the general of our gracious empress 
(As, in good time, he may), from Ireland coming, 
Bringing rebellion broached on his sword. 
How many would the peaceful city quit. 
To welcome him ? 

'* There can be no doubt," remarks Kenny, " that these lines 
refer to the expedition of the Earl of Essex to Ireland,'' adding 
that it was very likely " Shakespeare was the more disposed to 
indulge in this kindly allusion, from the fact that his own special 
patron, the Earl of Southampton, served in the expedition as 
Master of the Horse." ' It is worthy of observation here, that 

^ " Studies and Writings of Shakespeare," by Joseph Hunter, vol. ii. p. 
58. London, 1845. 

2 "Life and Genius of Shakespeare," bv Thomas Kenny, p. 241. London, 
1864. 



2o8 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

Hunter, in his notice of" Heniy V./^ remarks, that " the name of 
Fluellin, given to the Welsh soldier in this play, was probably 
taken from the name of William Fluellin, who was buried at 
Stratford, July 9, 1595 ;" a fact which works to the support of 
the Stratford authorship of the Shakespearian plays. Schlegel, 
in speaking of King Henry V., says, it is doubtful if Shakespeare 
ever would have written the play of " Henry V.^' " had not the 
stage previously possessed it in the old play of ^ The Famous 
Victories,^ because Henry IV. would have been perfect as a 
dramatic whole, without the addition of ' Henry V. ; ^ but,'' adds 
he, '^ having brought the history of Henry of Monmouth up to 
the pei'iod of his father's death, the demands of an audience 
which had been accustomed to hail the madcap Prince of Wales 
as the conqueror of Agincourt, compelled him to continue the 
story.'' Knight does not think Shakespeare would have chosen 
the subject of Henry V. for a drama, " for," says he, " as skil- 
fully as he has managed it, and magnificent as the whole drama 
is as a great national song of triumph, there can be no doubt 
that Shakespeare felt that in this play he was dealing with a 
theme too narrow for his peculiar powers . . . the subject being 
altogether one of lyric grandeur. . . . And yet, how exquisitely 
has Shakespeare thrown his dramatic power into this undramatie 
subject. The character of the King is one of the most finished 
portraits that has proceeded from his master hand. ... It was 
for him to embody in the person of Henry V. the principle of 
national heroism; it was for him to call forth the spirit of 
patriotic reminiscence." 

Upon this feature of the character of Shakespeare, Gervinius 
is not so enthusiastic as the English commentator. He thinks 
Shakespeare would have done better if he had not fallen too 
easily into the weakness of the age for boasting : — 

" It seems to me," he says, " more than probable that a jealous 
patriotic feeling actuated our poet in the entire representation of 
his Prince Henry ; the intention, namely, of exhibiting by the 
side of his brilliant contemporary, Henry IV. of France, a Henry 
upon the English throne equal to him in greatness and origi- 
nality. The greatness of his hero, however, would apjiear still 
more estimable if his enemies were depicted as less inestimalle. It 
alone belonged to the ancients to honour even their enemies. 
Homer exhibits no depreciation of the Trojans, and jEschylus no 



^^ Henry V." 209 

trace of contempt of the Persians, even when he delineates their 
impiety and rebukes it. In this there lies a large-hearted 
equality of estimation, and a nobleness of mind, far surpassing 
in practical morality, many subtle Christian theories of brotherly 
love. That Shakespeare distorts the French antagonists, and 
could not even get rid of his Virgil-taught hatred against the 
Greeks, is one of the few traits which we would rather not see in 
his works ; it is a national narrow-mindedness with which the 
Briton gained ground over the matt. The nations of antiquity, 
who bore a far stronger stamp of nationality than any modern 
people, were strangers to this intolerant national pride." 

Kenny, in treating upon the view which Shakespeare's por- 
trait of Henry V. gives us of the poet's own character, says, — 

'^ We do not know any other work of his in which his national 
or personal predilections have made themselves so distinctly 

visible A large portion of the story has to be told, or 

merely indicated, by the choruses, in which the poet himself has 
to appear and to confess the inability of his art to reproduce the 
march and shock of armies, and, above all, the great scene on the 
field of Agincourt. 

" Some of the modern continental critics," continues this 
shrewd observer, " think they can see that not only was Henry V. 
Shakespeare's favourite hero, but that this is the character, 
in all the poet's dramas, which he himself most nearly resembled. 
Many people will, perhaps, hardly be able to refrain from a 
smile on hearing of this conjecture. We certainly cannot see the 
slightest ground for its adoption. The whole history of Shake- 
speare's life, and the whole cast of Shakespeare's genius, are 
opposed to this extravagant supposition. We have no doubt 
that the poet readily sympathized with the frank and gallant 
bearing of the king. But we find no indication in all that we 
know of his temperament, or of the impression which he produced 
upon his contemporaries, of that firm, rigid, self-conqpntrated 
personality which distinguishes the born masters of mankind. 

" Henry V. was necessarily peremptory, designing, unwaver- 
ing, energetic, and self-willed; S/iakesjjeare was fiexihle, cliange- 
ful, meditative, sceptical, and self -distrustful. This was clearly the 
temperament of the author of the sonnets ; it was too, we believe, 
not less clearly the character of the wonderful observer and 
delineator of all the phases of both tragic and comic passion : 



2 ro Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

and it was, perhaps, in no small degree, through the very variety 
of his emotional and imaginative sensibility, and the very absence 
of that completeness and steadfastness of nature which his in- 
judicious admirers now claim for him, that he was enabled to 
become the great dramatic poet of the world/' 

I quote this latter paragraph with satisfaction, because it 
agrees in its conception of Shakespeare's personal character with 
that which was expressed by me, in Chapter XXI., before I 
had met with these remarks of Mr. Kenny. 

Let me say here, that I give all of the foregoing observations 
to such large extent, because they indicate, to my comprehension, 
the vagrant and adaptable imagination of the playright, rather 
than the philosophical and scholarly responsibility of Bacon. 

The first thing which attracts attention in the text of " Henry 
v.," as bearing upon the points of our inquiry, are the four open- 
ing lines in the chorus : — 

O for a muse of fire, that would ascend 
The brightest heaven of invention ! 
A kingdom for a stage, princes to act. 
And monarcJis to behold the stvelling scene ! 

The next occurs in the first scene of the first act, and exhibits 
our poet's predisposition to express himself reverently when 
referring to the Catholic religion : — 

For all the temporal lands, which men devout 
By testament have given to the church. 

Again : — 

The king is full of grace and fair regard, 
And a true lover of the holy church. 

The above two words, " devout " and " holy," could have been 
easily supplied by other equally descriptive terms ; but inasmuch 
as Shakespeare always selects religious adjectives after this 
solemn and reverential fashion, they seem to be spontaneous 
evidences of settled Komanism. I think it is fair to conclude 
that no rigid Protestant, like Bacon, would invariably refer to 
the Catholic Church in this worshipful and bending way. 

In Scene 2 of the same act we have an intricate and learned 
exposition of the Salique law of France. It is given as a part of 
an abstruse legal digest of title for Henry as the lawful King of 
France, and is so technical that it is impossible to resist the 



" Henry V" 2 1 1 

conclusion that Shakespeare must have ordered the statement 
from some lawyer for his purposes ; and it is not impossible he 
begged it from Lord Bacon. It is a little singular that Lord 
Chief Justice Campbell should have utterly passed by this most 
conspicuous of all the evidences of law learning which the plays 
contain. Lord Campbell must have recognized this as an out- 
side law exploit on the part of our poet^ and probably thought it 
prudent to take no notice of it, inasmuch as it might impair his 
own previous arguments. It may be remarked, on the other 
side, that Shakespeare took it almost bodily from Holinshed, the 
historian ; but that argument none the less affects the position 
of Lord Campbell, for if Shakespeare could utilize as much law 
learning as this, from the pages of the old chronicler, the field 
for his smaller scraps of legal phrase was obviously easier to 
\vork. 

The main action of " Henry V." consists in the invasion of 
France with thirty thousand men, twenty-four thousand of 
whom were foot soldiers, and six thousand horse. The em- 
barkation of these forces was made from Southampton, in fifteen 
hundred ships, on the 11th of August, 1415, and the whole were 
landed on the coast of France on the second day afterward. The 
first exploit of this army was to lay siege to Harfleur, for, in 
those days of pikes and cross-bows, prudent commanders never 
ventured to advance into an enemy^s country with walled towns 
behind them. The place surrendered on the 22nd of September, 
after a siege of thirty-six days, when Henry, finding that two- 
thirds of his force had perished by battle and by the ravages of 
a frightful dysentery, determined to fall back on Calais, and 
abandon his expedition. For the performance of this movem.ent 
the English chroniclers say that the army remaining to him did 
not amount to more than eight thousand fighting men in all.^ 
Before leaving Harfleur, however, we find King Henry thus 
invoking the devoted remnant of his troops to the assault : — 

K. Hen. Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; 
Or close the wall up with our English dead ! 

* w w ^ 

Now set the teeth, and stretch the nostril wide, 
Hold hard the breath, and bend up every spirit 

3 Knight, vol. iii., p. 574, Appleton's New York edition. 



2 12 Shakespeare, fi^om an American Point of View, 

To his full height ! — On, on, you nohlest English, 

"Whose blood is f et from fathers of war proof ? 

Fathers, that, like so many Alexanders, 

Have, in these parts, from morn till even fought, 

And sheath'd their swords for lack of argument. 

Dishonour not your mothers ; now attest. 

That those, whom you call'd fathers, did beget you ; 

Be copy now to men of grosser blood, 

And teach them how to war ! — And you, good yeomen. 

Whose limbs were made in England, show us here, 

TJie mettle of your pasture ; let us swear 

That you are ivortli your breeding : which I doubt not ; 

For there is none of you so mean and base. 

That hath not noble lustre in your eyes. 

I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips, 

Straining ufon the start. The gamers afoot ; 

Follow your spirit : and, upon this charge. 

Cry — God for Harry ! England ! and Saint George ! 

There can scarcely be a wider distinction drawn between the 
merits of two classes of men than is here given for the nobles 
against the rank and file; and we can see how Shakespeare 
holds mere soldier's in his estimation^ by the following reference 
to them, immediately afterward, when Henry sent his last 
summons to the Governor of Harfleur, to surrender : — 

K. Hen. If I begin the battery once again, 

I will not leave the half-achieved Harfleur, 

Till in her ashes she lie buried. 

The gates of mercy shall be all shut up ; 

And theflesh'd soldier, — rough and hard of heart, — 

In liberty of bloody hand, shall range 

With conscience wide as hell ; mowing liJce grass 

Your fresh fair virgins and your flowering infants. 

What is it then to me, if impious war,— 

Array 'd in flames, like to the prince of fiends, — 

Do, with his smirch'd complexion, all fell feats 

Enlink'd to waste and desolation ? 

What is't to me, when you yourselves are cause. 

If your pure maidens fall into the hand 

Of hot and forcing violation .P 

What rein can hold licentious wickedness. 

When down the hill he holds his fierce career ? 

TFe may as bootless spend our vain command 

Upon the enraged soldiers in their spoil. 

As send precepts to the Leviathan 

To come ashore. Therefore, you men of Harfleur, 



^^ Henry V." 213 

Take pity of your town, and of your people, 
Whiles yet my soldiers are in my command ; 
Whiles yet the cool and temperate wind of grace 
O'erblows the filthy and contagious clouds 
Of deadly murder, spoil, and villany. 
If not, why, in a moment, look to see 
The blind and hloody soldier with foul hand 
Defile the locJcs of your shrill-shrieTcing daughters ; 
Your fathers taken hy the silver beards. 
And their most reverend heads dash'd to the walls. 
Your naked infants spitted upon piTces ; 
Whiles the mad mothers with their howls confused 
Do breah the clouds, as did the loives of Jewry 
At Herod's bloods-hunting slaughtermen. 

At this terrific threat the town surrenders. 

In a few days after the surrender, the king is about to take his 
greatly-diminished force, now reduced to certainly less than 9000 
men, to Calais ; but, on the point of this retreat, he is intercepted 
by the arrival of Montjoy, a herald, who brings from the French 
king a peremptory summons to surrender. Henry, after listening 
with patience, thus replies : — 

K. HEiiT. Thou dost thy office fairly. Turn thee back, 
And tell thy king — I do not seek him now ; 
But could be willing to march on to Calais 
Without impeachment ; for, to say the sooth, 
(Though 'tis no wisdom to confess so much 
Unto an enemy of craft and vantage). 
My people are with sickness much enfeebled ; 
My numbers lessen'd ; and those few I have, 
Almost no better than so many Trench ; 
Who, when they were in health, I tell thee, herald, 
I thought, upon one pair of English legs 
Did march three Frenchmen, 

The sum of all our answer is but this : 
We would not seek a battle, as we are ; 
Nor as we are, we say, we will not shun it ; 
So tell your master. 

In Act IV. Scene 1, we have Pistol interrogating King Henry, 
while the latter is walking about the camp in disguise, during 
the night before the battle of Agincourt : — 

Pistol. Discuss unto me ; art thou officer ? 

Or art thou base, common, and popular ? 
King-. I am a gentleman of a company. 
15 



214 Shakespeare, from a7i American Point of View. 

After a while the king is left alone, when, surveying in his 
mind the dangers of the morrow, the labours and responsibilities, 
the suffering and the wakefulness which he is obliged to undergo, 
he indulges in the following fit of the blues : — 

And what have kings, that privates have not too, 
Save ceremony, save general ceremony ? 
And what art thoii, thou idol ceremony? 
What kind of god art thou, that suffer'st more 
Of mortal griefs, than do thy worshippers ? 
What are thy rents ? what are thy comings-in ? 

ceremony, show me but thy worth ! 
What is the soul of adoration ? 

Art thou aught else but place, degree, and form, 

Creating awe and fear in other men ? 

Wherein thou art less happy being fear'd 

Than they in fearing. 

What driuk'st thou oft, instead of homage sweet, 

But poison'd flattery ? O, be sick, great greatness, 

And bid thy ceremony give thee cure ! 

Think'st thou, the fiery fever will go out 

With titles blown from adulation ? 

WlU it give place to flexure and low bending ? 

Canst thou, when thou command'st the beggar's knee, 

Command the health of it ? No, thou proud dream, 

That play'st so subtly with a king's repose ; 

1 am a king that find thee ; and I know, 
'Tis not the balm, the sceptre, and the baU, 
The sword, the mace, the crown imperial. 
The inter-tissued robe of gold and pearl. 
The farced title running 'fore the king. 
The throne he sits on, nor the tide of pomp 
That beats upon the high shore of this world, 
No, not all these, thrice-gorgeous ceremony. 
Not all these, laid in bed majestical, 

Can sleep so soundly as the wretched slave ; 

Who, with a body fiU'd, and vacant mind, 

Gets him to rest, cramm'd with distressful bread ; 

Never sees horrid night, the child of hell ; 

But, like a lackey, from the rise to set. 

Sweats in the eye of Phoebus, and all night 

Sleeps in Elysium ; next day, after dawn, 

Doth rise, and help Syperion to his horse ; 

And follows so the ever-running year 

With profitable labour, to his grave : 

And, but for ceremony, such a ivretch. 

Winding up days with toil, and nights toith sleep^ 



''Henry V." 215 

Had the fore-hand and vantage of a king. 
27^6 slave, a member of the country's peace, 
Enjoys it ; but in gross brain little wots 
What watch the king keeps to maintain the peace, 
Whose hours the jpeasant best advantages. 

This gloomy dissertation upon the animal advantages of being 
a vacant-mindedj wretched slave^ who^ crammed with food, sleeps 
sound and rises in the morning only too happy to help his lordship 
to his horse, is naturally followed by a religious fit, in which his 
majesty continues : — 

God of battles ! steel my soldiers' hearts ! 
Possess them not with fear ; take from them now 
The sense of reckoning, if the opposed numbers 
Pluck their hearts from them ! — Not to-day, Lord, 

not to-day, think not upon the fault 
My father made in compassing the crown ! 

1 Richard's body have interr'd new ; 

And on it have hestow'd more contrite tears. 
Than from it issued forced drops of blood. 
Five hundred poor I have in yearly pay. 
Who ttvice a day their wither'd hands hold up 
Totvards heaven, to pardon blood; and I have built 
Two chantries, tvhere the sad and solemn friests 
Sing still for Richard's soul, Jifore will J do : 
Though all that I can do, is nothing worth ; 
Since that my penitence comes after all. 
Imploring pardon. 

And we shall presently see that, under our poet's patronage, this 
pious penitence pays a rich percentage. But here let me pause 
a moment to remark, that it seems impossible the adorable 
picture presented in the reverential lines — 

Two chantries, where the sad and solemn priests 
Sing still for Richard's soul — 

could have spontaneously formed itself in the mind of any Pro- 
testant writer of the Elizabethan period of religious prejudice 
and persecution. 

But' the battle of Agincourt is approaching, and Shakespeare 
thus presents the contrasted condition and numbers of the com- 
batants. 

We take the statement as the poet gives it first from the 
French camp : — 



2i6 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

Act IV. Scene 2. — The French Camp. 
Present — The Dauphin, Oeleans, Eambuees, and others. 

Enter Constable. 
Con. To horse, you gallant princes ! straight to horse ! 
Do but behold yon poor and starved band. 
And your fair show shall suck away their souls. 
Leaving them but the shades and husks of men. 
There is not work enough for aU our hands ; 
Scarce blood enough in all their sickly veins. 
To give each naked curtle-ax a stain, 
That our French gallants shall to-day draw out, 
And sheath for lack of sport ; let us but blow on them. 
The vapour of our valour will o'erturn them. 
'Tis positive 'gainst all exceptions, lords, 
That our superfluous lacJceys and our peasants, — 
Who, in unnecessary action, swarm 
About our squares of battle, — loere enough 
To purge this field of such a hildingfoe: 
Though we, upon this mountain's basis by. 
Took stand for idle speculation : 
But that our honours must not. What's to say ? 
A very little little let us do. 
And all is done. Then, let the trumpets sound 
The tucket sonnance, and the note to mount : 
For our approach shall so much dare the field. 
That England shall couch down in fear and yield. 
Enter Geandpee. 
Geand. Why do you stay so long, my lords of France, 
Yon island carrions, desperate of their bones, 
lU-favouredly become the morning field : 
Their ragged curtains poorly are let loose. 
And our air shakes them passing scornfully. 
Sig Mars seems banhrupt in their beggar d host. 
And faintly through a rusty beaver peeps. 
Their horsemen sit liJce fixed candlesticJcs, 
With torch staves in their hands : and their poor jades 
Liob down their heads, dropping the hides and hips ; 
The gum down-roping from their pale dead eyes ; 
And in their pale dull mouths the gimmal bit 
Lies foul with chewed grass, still and motionless ; 
• And their executors, the "knavish crotvs, 
riy o'er them all, impatient for their hour. 

The scene now shifts to tlie English, camp. 

Act IV. Scene 3. 
Enter the English Army, Glostee, Bedfoed, Exetee, Saiisbtjet, and 

Westmoeeland. 



. " Henry F." 217 

Glostee. Where is the king ? 

Bedfoed. The king himself is rode to view their battle. 

Westmoeeland. Of fighting men they have^W three score thousand. 

ExETEE. There's five to one ; besides, they are all fresh. 

Salisbuet. God's arm strike with us ! 'tis a fearful odds. 

This brings us to the battle. The conflict is in favour of King 
Henry from the first, but it rages with such violence, and the 
English are so wearied, even by the weight of their success, that 
in the midst of it Henry issues the order that every soldier kill 
his prisoners. 

KiJSTG. The French have reinforced their scatter'd men : 
Then every soldier kill his prisoners ; 
Give the word through ! 

One of the English historians, Sir H. Nicolas, thus alludes to 
the battle : — 

" The immense number of the French proved their ruin. , . . 
The battle lasted three hours. The English stood on heaps of 
corpses which exceeded a man's height. The French, indeed, fell 
almost passive in their lines. . . . The total loss of the French 
was about 10,000 slain on the field; that of the English appears 
to have been abotd twelve hundred. . . . The English king con- 
ducted himself with his accustomed dignity to his many illus- 
trious prisoners. The victorious army marched to Calais in fine 
order, and embarked for England (on the 17th of November) 
without any attempt to follow up their victory .'' 

The following is Shakespeare's account of the result : — 

Act lY. Scene 8. 
Enter an English Serald, 

K. Hen. Now, Herald ; are the dead number'd ? 

Hee. Here is the number of the slaughter'd French. 

{^Delivers a pajaer. 

K. Hen. What prisoners of good sort are taken, uncle ? 

ExETEE. Charles duke of Orleans, nephew to the king ; 

John duke of Bourbon, and the lord Bouciqualt : 
Of other lords, and barons, knights, and 'squires, 
Full fifteen hundred, besides common men. 

K. Hen. This note doth tell me of ten thousand French, 

That in the field lie slain : of princes, in this number, 
And nobles bearing banners, there lie dead 
One hundred and twenty-six : added to these, 
Of knights, esquires, and gallant gentlemen, 



2i8 Shakespeare, from an American. Point of View. 

Eiglit thousand and four hundred ; of the which, 

rive hundred were hut yesterday duhb'd knights : 

So that, in these ten thousand they have lost, 

There are but sixteen hundred mercenaries ; 

The rest are — princes, barons, lords, hniglits, 'squires. 

And gentlemen of Mood and quality. 

* * * 

Here was a royal fellowship of death ! — ■ 

Where is the number of our English dead ? 

\JEEerald presents another paper. 

Edward the duke of York, the earl of Suffolk, 

Sir Eichard Ketly, Davy Gam, esquire : 

None else of name ; and of all other men, 

But five and twenty. O God, thy arm was here. 

And not to us, but to thy arm alone. 

Ascribe we all ! — When, without stratagem, 

But in plain shock, and even play of battle. 

Was ever known so great and little loss. 

On one part and on the other ? — Take it, God, 

Eor it is only thine ! . 
ExETEE. 'Tis wonderful ! 

K. Hen. Come, go we in procession to the village : 

And be it death proclaimed through our host. 

To boast of this, or take that praise from God, 

Which is his only. 

* * * 

K. Hen. Do we all Jioly rites ; 

Let there he sung Non Nohis, and Te Deum. 
The dead with charity enclosed in clay. 
We'll then to Calais ; and to England then. 
Where ne'er from France arrived more happy men. 

Here we have, according" to Shakespeare, the loss of only 
twenty-nine men to the English, nobles and all, during three hours^ 
hard fighting, against the slaughter of ten thousand French ! A 
result manufactured for the play-house by a playwright who was 
catering to audiences, as the playwrights of to-day cater for the 
uproarious swarms of the Surrey Theatre in London, the Porte 
St. Martin in Paris, or the Bowery Theatre in New York ; cater- 
ing, however, only for their shouts and shillings — which Shake- 
speare knew how to do — and not for their sensible and historical 
appreciation, as would h^ve been the aim of a rigid philosopher 
like Bacon. 

One incident occurred at the end of the battle, in Scene 7, 
which, though we have passed it in the course of our narrative. 



''Henry V." 219 

must not be overlooked. The FreBcli herald enters and asks of 
Henry the usual privilege to go over the field and sort out the 
dead. The following is his language : — 

MoNTJOT. Great king, 

I come to thee for charitable licence, 
That we may wander o'er this bloody field, 
To book our dead, and then to bury them ; 
To sort our nobles from our common men ; 
For many of our princes {woe the while !) 
Lie drowned and soaked in mercenary hlood ; 
{80 do our vulgar drench their peasant limbs 
In hlood of princes). 

It seems to me that had the author of these lines possessed but 
one grain of true consideration for his kind, he might have con- 
structed the above abominable paragraph somewhat after the 
following fashion : — 

That we may wander o'er the bloody field, 

To gather up our dear heroic dead, 

Who, whether nobly or obscurely born, 

Have, by thus dying in their country's cause, i 

Earn'd equal knighthood at the court of Heaven. 



220 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

"king henry VI." — PART I. 

This play, and its two succeeding branches, known as Parts 
II. and III.j though later in their chronology than " King John" 
and those plays which follow in order up to " Henry N ." were 
undoubtedly written in advance of all the English historical 
series ; and, while the authorship by Shakespeare of the Eirst 
Part, or the fact of his having had any hand in it whatever, has 
been very seriously disputed, I shall accept its authenticity for the 
purposes of this inquiry, without entering into the discussion. 
The play comes to us in the regular and authorized edition of 
Shakespeare's dramatic works, and this is sufficient warrant for us 
to proceed as if the origin of its text never had been questioned. 
Indeed, so much has been written in the dispute, and there is 
still so much left to dispute about, that, by touching it at all, I 
fear I should only add to the confusion of the reader. All the 
commentators agree, however, that if Shakespeare was the author 
of the Eirst Part of " Henry VL," it must have been among the 
earliest efforts of his genius. The other English historical 
dramas ascribed to him, and running up to " Henry V.," were all 
finished subsequently to 1593. " Henry YI,," Part I., was cer- 
tainly written previous to 1592, while Hunter and some others 
credit its production to as early a period as 1587. 

The character of King Henry VI. is that of a weak, variable, 
puling saint, who, had he been a man, might have saved to 
England the conquests of his father, and prevented the House of 
Lancaster from falling before the bolder sword of York. With 
this mere glimpse at the defective character of such a singular 
production of a warrior sire, I will proceed to the illustrations 
from the Eirst Part, which support especial portions of our 
theme. 

It will be recollected that in the course of the examination 
which arose in the earlier portion of this work, on the subject of 



" King Henry VI" — Part I. 221 

the religious faith of our poet^ liberal illustrations were given 
from the text of several of the plays. Among these were 
extracts of considerable length from the play before us^ all going 
to show the spontaneity of Shakespeare^s catholic sentiments and 
predilections. To avoid repetition^ therefore, I will now simply 
refer the reader back to pages 58, 59, 60 and 61, as portions of 
this chapter. 

As we follow the pomp and pageantry of these dramatic 
histories, awed or intoxicated by the swelling imagery which 
invites our homage to the kings and nobles who are the darlings 
of our poet^s soul, we naturally look now and then for courage 
or worthiness in some humbler characters, upon whom our poet 
might condescend to bestow a portion of his beneficient considera- 
tion. But we constantly look in vain; for William Shakespeare 
takes not the slightest respectful interest in anything below 
the status of a knight. On the contrary, he usually prefers to 
elevate his aristocratic pets by the mean process of degrading 
every character not possessed of rank. 

The initial illustration which the First Part of " Henry VI." 
gives us of this deplorable tendency, occurs in tbe speech of Joan 
of Arc, when she describes the humbleness of her birth to the 
Dauphin of France : — 

PucELLE. Dauphin, I am hy hirth a sJiejpJierd' s daughter. 
My wit^ uDtrain'd in any kind of art, 
Heaven, and our Lady gracious, hatli it pleased 
To shine on my contemptible estate : 
Lo, whilst I waited on my tender lambs, 
And to sun's parching heat display'd my cheeks, 
God's mother deigned to appear to me : 
And, in a vision full of majestj', 
Will'd me to leave my base vocation. 

Act J. Scene 2. 

We find this disdain for inferior birth still more extravagantly 
expressed in Scene 4 of the same act, where Talbot, the leader of 
the English forces in France, declares that, on one occasion, when 
he was held a prisoner, he preferred the alternative of death, to 
the insult of being exchanged for a French prisoner of inferior 
condition. 

^ The word " wit " in our poet's time, usually meant intellect or intelli- 
gence, and not wit as we use the word now. 



22 2 Shakespeare^ from an American Point of View. 

Talbot. The Duke of Bedford had a prisoner, 

Called— the brave Lord Ponton de Santrailles ; 

For him I was exchanged and ransomed. 

Jiut ivith a baser man of arms by far, 

Once, in contempt, they would have barter d me; 

Which I, disdainitiff, scorn d ; and craved death 

father than I would be so filed esteem' d. 

In fine, redeem'd I was as I desired. 

The next instance occurs during" the course of the quarrel be- 
tween Somerset and Plantagenet^ in the memorable scene in the 
Temple Garden, where the plucking of the white and red roses 
signalizes the initiative of the long strife, between the houses of 
York and Lancaster. Somerset, in this scene, taunts Plantagenet 
with the attainder of his father, E-ichard, Earl of Cambridge, 
who was executed at Southampton for treason in the previous 
reign of Henry V. Somerset, in his tirade, thus describes the 
effect of such a ban : — 

SoMEESET. Was not thy father, Ei chard, Earl of Cambridge, 
Tor treason executed in our late king's days .P 
And, by his treason, stand'st not thou attainted, 
Corrupted, and exempt y^'OOT ancient gentry 1 
His trespass yet lives guilty in thy blood; 
And, till thou be restored, thou art a yeoman. 

Again, Talbot, in the next act, taunts the French, who are on 
the walls of Eouen. 

Talbot. Base muleteers of France ! 

Like peasant footboys do they keep the walls. 
And dare not take up arms like gentlemen. 

In the First Scene of Act IV., Talbot and Gloster thus de- 
nounce a certain Sir John Fastolfe (not our old friend Falstaff, 
of the Boar's Head Tavern) with treachery to the English forces 
in the field : — 

Talbot (fo Fastolfe). And 

I vow'd, base knight, when I did meet thee next. 

To tear the garter from thy craven's leg. \Fluching it off, 

(Which I have done), because unworthily 

Thou wast installed in that high degree. — 

Pardon me, princely Henry, and the rest : 

This dastard, at the battle of Paray, 

When but in all I was six thousand strong, 

And that the French were almost ten to one, — 



* ' King Henry VI. ' ' — Part /. 223 

Before we met, or that a stroke was given, 
Like to a trusty squire, did run away : 
In which assault we lost twelve hundred men, 
Myself, and divers gentlemen beside, 
Were there surprised and taken prisoners. 
Then judge, great lords, if I have done amiss ; 
Or, whether that such cowards ought to wear 
This ornament of Jcnighthood, yea or no ? 
Glo. To say the truth, this act was infamous. 
And ill-beseeming any common man ; 
3Iuch more a knight, a captain, and a leader. 
Tal. When first this order was ordained, my lords, 
Knights of the garter toere of nolle birth; 
Valiant, and virtuous, full of haughty courage. 
Such as were grown to credit by the wars ; 
Not fearing death, nor shrinking for distress, 
But always resolute in most extremes. 
He, then, that is not furnish'd in this sort. 
Doth but usurp the sacred name of knight, 
Profaning this most honourable order ; 
And should (if I were worthy to be judge,) 
Be quite degraded, like a hedge-born stvain 
That doth presume to boast of gentle blood. 
K. Hen. Stain to thy countrymen ! thou hear'st thy doom. 
Be packing thei'efore, thou that wast a knight ; 
Henceforth we banish thee on pain of death. 

Finallyj in order to put the climax of reprobation upon low 
birth and its assumed degraded instincts^ Shakespeare makes the 
inspired maid, Joan of Arc, deny her own father in most oppro- 
brious terms, her chief accusation being against the meanness of 
his birth. The following is a full description of this extraor- 
dinary scene : — 

Act V. Scene 4. — Camp of the Duke of York, in Anjou. 
Enter YoEK, Waewick, and others. 
YoEK. Bring forth that sorceress, condemn'd to burn. 
Enter La Pucelle, guarded, and a Shepherd. 
Shep. Ah, Joan ! this kills thy father's heart outright ! 
Have I sought every country far and near. 
And, now it is my chance to find thee out, 
Must I behold thy timeless, cruel death.? 
Ah, Joan, sweet daughter Joan, I'll die with thee ! 
Puc. Decrepit miser !^ base, ignoble wretch ! 

" " Miser " means, in this connexion, miserable person. — Duychinck. 



224 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

I am descended of a gentler blood; , 

Tkou art no father, nor no friend, of mine. 
Shep. Out, out ! — My lords, an please you, 'tis not so ; 

I did beget her, all the parish, knows : 

Her mother liveth yet, can testify 

She was the first fruit of my bachelorship. 
Wae. Graceless ! wilt thou deny thy parentage ? 
YoEK. This argues what her kind of life hath been ; 

Wicked and vile ; and so her death concludes. 
Shep. Fye, Joan ! that thou wilt be so obstacle ! 

God knows, thou art a coUop of my flesh : 

And for thy sake have I shed many a tear : 

Deny me not, I pr'y thee, gentle Joan. 
Puc. Feasant, avaunt ! You have suborn d this man 

Of purpose to obscure my noble birth. 
Shep. 'Tis true, I gave a noble to the priest, 

The morn that I was wedded to her mother. 

Kneel down and take my blessing, good my girl. 

WUt thou not stoop ? Now cursed be the times 

Of thy nativity ! I would, the milk 

Thy mother gave thee, when thou suck'dst her breast, 

Had been a little ratsbane for thy sake ! 

Or else, when thou didst keep my lambs a field, 

I wish some ravenous wolf had eaten thee ; 

Dost thou deny thy father, cursed drab ? 

O, burn her, burn her ; hanging is too good, \_JExit. 

ToEK. Take her away ; for she hath lived too long 

To fill the world with vicious qualities. 
Puc. First, let me tell you whom you have condemn'd ; 

Not me begotten of a shepherd swain, 

JBut issued from the progeny of kings ; 

Virtuous, and holy ; chosen from above, 

By inspiration of celestial grace. 

TP w ^ 

YoEE. Ay, ay ; — away with her to execution. 

And hark ye, sirs ; because she is a maid. 

Spare for no faggots, let there be enough ; 

Place barrels of pitch upon the fatal stake, 

That so her torture may be shortened. 
PtiC. WiU nothing turn your unrelenting hearts? 

Then, Joan, discover thine infirmity ; 

That warranteth by law to be thy privilege. 

I am with child, ye bloody homicides ; 

Murder not then the fruit within my womb, 

Although ye hale me to a violent death. 
YoEK. Now, heaven forfend ! the holy maid with child ? 
Wae. The greatest miracle that e'er ye wrought : 



^^ King Henry VI T — Parti. 225 

Is all your strict preciseness come to this ? 
YoEK. She and the Dauphin have been juggling : 

I did imagine what would he her refuge. 
Wae. Well, go to ; we will have no bastards live ; 

Especially, since Charles must father it. 
Puc. You are deceived ; my child is none of his : 

It was Alen9on that enjoy'd my love. 
YoEK. Alengon ! that notorious Machiavel ! 

It dies, an if it had a thousand lives. 
Puc. O, give me leave, I have deluded you ; 

'Twas neither Charles, nor yet the duke I named, 

But Eeignier, king of Naples, that prevail'd. 
Wae. a married man ! that's most intolerable. 
YoEK. Why, here's a girl ! I think, she knows not well, 

There were so many, whom she may accuse. 
Wae. It's sign, she hath been liberal and free. 
YoEK. And yet, forsooth, she is a virgin pure. — 

Strumpet, thy words condemn thy brat, and thee : 

Use no entreaty, for it is in vain. 
Puc. Then lead me hence ;— with whom I leave my curse : 

May never glorious sun reflex his beams 

Upon the country where you make abode ! 

But darkness and the gloomy shade of death 

Environ you : till mischief, and despair, 

Drive you to break your necks, or hang yourselves ! 

{Exit, guarded. 
YoEK. Break thou in pieces, and consume to ashes, 

Thou foul accursed minister of hell ! 

In Scene 5 of Act V. we have the following' expression by 
Suffolk^ in reply to an objection raised by some of Henry's 
nobles, that the proposed dower of Margaret is insufficient for 
the consort of a king : — 

Suffolk. So, worthless feasants bargain for their wives. 
As market-men for oxen, sheep, or horse. 
Marriage is a matter of more worth, 
Than to be dealt in by attorneyship. 

King Henry, after hearing this speech, orders Suffolk to go 
and entreat — 

That Lady Margaret do vouchsafe to come 
To cross the seas to England, and be crown'd 
King Henry's faithful and anointed queen ; 
For your expenses and sufficient charge 
Among the people gather up a tenth. 

Lords, lords, lords; nothing but princes and lords, and The 



226 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

People never alluded to except as worthless peasants, or to be 
scorned as seals and hedge-horn swains. Surely the privileged 
classes of Great Britain cannot defend the supremacy of Shake- 
speare's intellect too stubbornly. As I have said before, they 
have an interest in keeping up a prestige for the Bard of Avon 
which is to them beyond all price ! — Though it suggests itself, 
in this connexion, that those classes exhibit an impolitic greedi- 
ness when they try to prove, under the leadership of such social 
autocrats as Palmerston, that the author of these plays was a 
noble like themselves. The services rendered to their order by 
the transcendant muse of Shakespeare, would be of tenfold value 
as coming from a commoner, than through the medium of 
rank. But errors of this stamp are always made in unjust 
causes. The bards who string their lyres for liberty receive 
only the frowns of Corinthian society ; and no room is allowed 
for the unrespected ashes, even of the derogate liberty-loving 
noble, Byron, in Westminster Abbey. 



^^ King Henry VI y — Part II, 227 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

" KING HENRY VI.-" — PAET II. 

Whatever the blind idolaters of Shakespeare may offer in excuse 
for his abject servility to the privileged classes^ and for his 
aggressive contempt for humble birth and laborious avocation ; 
whatever extenuation may be made in the name of patriotism 
for his monstrous perversions of the truth of history^ — as in his 
account of the battle of Agincourtj and for usually making the 
English whip their enemies at the disadvantage of at least ten 
to one^ — no palliation can be set up for him in regard to the 
monstrous and inexcusable falsehoods which disgrace the pages 
of the above-entitled play as to the rebellion of Jack Cade, and 
about the character of that brave and devoted leader. The " love 
of country ^■' which is pleaded in excuse for the English poet's 
exaggerations against the French, while it may be pardoned by 
some very loyal persons, is a far less worthy motive to any well- 
regulated mind, than the love of humanity and truth. The 
first may be characterized as a mere geographical affection, 
carefully inculcated by monarchs for their own purposes, and 
extending no further than the boundaries of their dominions; 
while the latter are sentiments implanted by the Creator, as 
broad as His own mercy, as active as His own beneficence, and 
comprehending, through the impulses of every good heart, the 
welfare and happiness of the whole human race. There can be 
no excuse for such an entire absence of philanthropy in any man, 
as to justify his discharging the poor and humble so utterly 
from his consideration, as Shakespeare did ; or to induce him to 
find his ideals of patriotism and worthiness only amid the 
throngs of their oppressors. Such a writer is a mere pander to 
the crimes of tyrants, and he gives evidence, whatever may be 
his intellectual eminence, that he has been perverted, by accidental 
circumstances, from the purpose he was commissioned to perform. 



2 28 Shakespeare, f 7'- om an American Point of View. 

Gratitude to earthly patrons^ sueli as William Shakespeare^s 
to Southampton and to Essex^ or the weak yearning of the 
Stratford adventurer to invest his easily-earned money in a 
coat-of-arms and become a gentleman^ can never palliate the 
monstrous misrepresentations by which the poet has deceived his 
humble countrymen, from an honest admiration of the patriotism 
of Jack Cade. 



THE EEBELLION OE WAT TYLER. 

To properly measure this perversion of his powers by Shake- 
speare, we must look at the social condition of England in the 
time of which he wrote. The rebellion of Jack Cade, against 
the oppressions of the nobles and the crown, took place in 1450, 
one hundred and four years before our poet was born. Only one 
popular uprising had previously taken place in England, and 
that was known as " the rebellion of Wat Tyler,^^ Avhich oc- 
curred in 1381, just seventy-nine years previous to the rebellion 
of Jack Cade. As the movement of Tyler was the first general 
rising of the Commons, and marks the dawn of popular liberty 
in England, we cannot do better than to give a sketch of the 
social state of afiairs, which provoked it, from the most trust- 
worthy chroniclers of the time. The principal of these chroniclers 
are Hall and Holinshed, by whose pages Shakespeare was mainly 
guided in his dramatic histories. Mackintosh, who wrote at a 
subsequent period and under better lights, is more liberal and 
reliable than either of the other two. In speaking of the 
oppressions of Wat Tyler^s time, Mackintosh says, — 

" It is an error to trace to the charters, which the barons 
extorted from their monarchs, the liberties of England; the 
triumphs of the nobles were theirs alone, and enured almost 
exclusively to their own advantage. The mass of the people 
were villeins or serfs, and they were left, by those boasted 
charters, in their chains. The condition of the bondmen differed 
in degrees of degradation and cruelty (for the mere slaves — 
servi — were known by the names of theow, esne, and thrall, and 
distinguished from the villeins), but, even where most favourable, 
it was a dark and inhuman oppression. The villeins were 
incapable of property, destitute of legal redress, and bound to 
services iffnoble in their nature and indeterminate in their 



^^ King Hemy VIT — Part II. 229 

degree; they were sold separately from the land, could not 
marry without consent, and were, in nowise, elevated above the 
beasts of burthen with which they drudged in their unrequited 
and hopeless labour. At length, their sufferings drove them into 
resistance; and that resistance, provoked and sanctified by 
unmeasured wrongs, has been, by almost every successive 
historian made the subject of misrepresentation and obloquy/-' 

Holinshed ascribes the insurrection of "Wat Tyler to ''' the 
lewd demeanour of some indiscrete officers,^^ but thus indignantly 
condemns the " disloyaP^ movement : — 

" The commons of the realme sore repining, not onely for the 
pole grotes that were demanded of them, by reason of the grant 
made in parlement, but also for that they were sore oppressed 
(as they tooke the matter) by their landlords, that demanded of 
them their ancient eustomes and services, set on by some develish 
instinct and persuasion of their owne beastlie intentions, as men 
not content with the state whereunto they were called, rose in 
diverse parts of this realme, and assembled togither in companies, 
purposing to inforce the prince to make them free and to release 
them of all servitude, whereby they stood as bondmen to their 
lords and superiours/'' 

Judge Conrad, of Philadelphia, in an able essay prefixed to his 
tragedy of " Jack Cade,''"' in writing of these times from an 
American stand-point, describes as follows the outrage to which 
Holinshed alludes : — 

. " The overcharged feelings of the people were at length, by an 
outrage calculated in the highest degree to excite the passions of 
the multitude, let loose, and swept the land like a torrent. One 
of the insolent and rapacious officers for the collection of an 
oppressive poll-tax entered, during the absence of its proprietor, 
the cottage of a tiler — a man who seems to have been worthily 
esteemed by the populace. This tax was leviable upon females 
only when over fifteen years of age ; and the licentious officer, 
alleging that the beautiful daughter of the tiler was beyond that 
age, ' therewith,'' (we quote again from HoUinshed) , ' began to 
misuse, the maid, and search further than honestie would have 
permitted. The mother straightwaie made an outcrie, so that 
hir husband being in the towne at worke, and hearing of this 
adoo at his house, came running home with his lathing staffe in 
his hand, and began to question with the officer, asking him who 
16 



230 Shakespeai'e, from an American Point of View. 

made him so bold to keepe sueli a rule in his house; the officer, 
being somewhat presumptuous, and high-minded, would forth- 
with have flown upon the tiler ; but the tiler, avoiding the officer^s 
blow, caught him such a rap on the pate, that his braines flue 
out, and so presentlie he died. Great noise rose about this matter 
in the streets, and the poor folks being glad, everie man arraied 
himself to support John Tiler, and thus the commons drew 
togither and went to Maidestone, and from thence to Blackheath, 
where their numbers so increased, that they were reckoned to be 
thirtie thousand. And the said John Tiler tooke vpon him to 
be their cheefe captaine, etc* 

" It would be difiicult to imagine holier motives to justify 
resistance to oppression than those unwittingly and unwillingly 
disclosed by the chroniclers, who represent the commons as the 
guiltiest malefactors. Their wrongs and sufferings were as dark 
and deadly as any which ever crushed a people. They had no 
hope of redress from courts or codes ; their only reliance was in 
their own union or hardihood ; and the invocation to resistance 
proclaimed in the outrage upon the helplessness of the Tiler^s 
daughter was as sacred and moving as that by which Brutus or 
Virginius aroused Rome. Nor does the purity and elevation of 
the cause suffer reproach from the conduct of its champions. 
Wat Tyler soon found himself at the head of one hundred thou- 
sand men, ' the villeins and poor men' of Kent, Norfolk, Suffolk, 
Essex, Sussex, and other Eastern counties. Illiterate, unused 
to freedom, infuriated by wrongs and desperate from misery, it 
might be 'supposed that so vast and disorganized a multitude 
would have rushed into boundless excesses. So far from it, it 
seems that, from the first, they not only disclaimed treasonable 
designs, but administered to all an oath that 'they should be 
faithful to King Hichard and the Commons.' They soon obtained 
possession of London, and the Chancellor and the Primate suffered 
the death they merited, ' as evil counsellors of the crown and 
cruel oppressors of the people ! ' 

" The conduct of this vast multitude, provoked by a thousand 
wrongs, and with the power to secure an ample vengeance, and 
glut to the uttermost their rapacity on the spoil of their unsparing 
oppressors, presents a singular contrast with the dishonourable 
perfidy and sanguinary cruelty exhibited by their lords. Mackin- 
tosh, the only historian who does them even stinted justice, says. 



^' King Henry VI T — Part II. 231 

* At this moment of victory, the demands of the serfs were mo- 
derate, and, except in one instance, just. They required the 
abolition of bondage, the liberty of buying* and selling in fairs 
and markets, a general pardon, and the reduction of the rent of 
land to an equal rate. The last of these conditions was indeed 
unjust and absurd ; but the first of them, though incapable of 
being carried into immediate execution without probably pro- 
ducing much misery to themselves, was yet of such indisputable 
justice on general grounds, as to make it most excusable in the 
sufierers to accept nothing less from their oppressors.'' But this 
usually accurate historian fails to inform us that the court, after 
a mature consideration of the demands of the commons, regularly 
and formally conceded all that was required. Doubts being 
entertained, as the result proved not without reason, of the sin- 
cerity of the king and court, charters were demanded and granted, 
securing the abolition of bondage, the redress of grievances, and 
a full pardon to all engaged in the insurrection. The annals of 
royalty, clouded as they are with every crime of which human 
nature is capable, present few instances of such deliberate and 
atrocious perfidy, or craft so cowardly and base, consummated by 
cruelty so guilty and unsparing. 

'^^The commons having received this charter departed home.^ 
The Essex men first left London, and those from other counties 
shortly followed. The leader of the Kentishmen, the unfortunate 
Wat Tyler, distrusted the fair dealing of the court, and in an 
interview with the king at Smithfield, met a melancholy realiza- 
tion of his fears. Mackintosh, in relating the facts, remarks, ' It 
must not be forgotten that the partisans of Tyler had no his- 
torians.'' But a careful review of the servile chroniclers of the 
court will satisfy the reader that Tyler was, in the presence of 
the king, and under his guaranty of safety, basely assassinated. 

" This murder was but the first of thousands. The finale may 
be readily imagined. The solemn and sacred pai'don of the king 
(Richard II.) was disregarded ; the charter, with its sanction of 
covenants and oaths, was revoked. After the dispersion of the 
commons, ' the men of Essex,'' says Holinshed, ' sent to the king 
to know of him if his pleasure was, that they should enjoy their 
promised liberties.'' The king, ' in a great chafe,'' answered that 
' bondmen they were and bondmen they should be, and that in 
more vile manner than before.^ An army was sent against themj 



232 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View, 

and a]l who did not escape into the woods were slain. Mackintosh 
admits that 'the revolt was extinguished with the cruelty and 
bloodshed- by which the masters of slaves seem generally anxious 
to prove that they are not of a race superior in any noble quality 
to the meanest of their bondmen. More than fifteen hundred 
perished by the hands of the hangman/ But Henry Kniston states 
that ' Then the king, of his accustomed clemencie, being pricked 
with pitie, would not that the wretches should die, but spared 
them, being a rash and foolish multitude, and commanded them 
everie man to get him home to his owne house ; howbeit manie 
of them at the king^s going awaie suffered death. In this miserable 
taking were reckoned to the number of twentie thousand.'' " 

I will adopt Judge Conrad's description of the events of Cade's 
uprising, preferring his narrative to any recital of my own; first, 
because a comparison of his with the histories of the period shows 
it to be entirely trustworthy ; and next, because it is not suscep- 
tible of improvement at my hands. 

THE REBELLION OF CADE. 

" The period between this rebellion and the uprising of Cade, 
in 1450,'' says Judge Conrad, " had reduced England to the 
same condition as under the reign of Richard II. Villeinage, 
with all its sufferings and debasement, continued, and the com- 
mons were ground to the dust by the exactions of the court, and 
the unbridled ojDpression of the barons. Thus, with disgrace 
abroad and agony at home, the contrast with the glory of the 
recent reign was insupportable ; and the popular discontent was 
manifested in risings, which, after the manner of the time, took 
the name of ' Blue Beard.' So intense was the excitement against 
Say and Suffolk, that the latter, notwithstanding the efforts of 
the Queen to screen ' her darling,' met the fate which he so justly 
merited. Shortly after this execution, a body of the peasantry of 
Kent met in arms, at ^Blackheath, under a leader whose brief 
and eventful career has been made the subject of unmeasured 
misrepresentation. 

" Stowe alone represents his name to have really been Cade, 
while in a contemporary record he is called Mr. John Aylmere, 
Physician (Ellis' Letters, I., second series, 112). This account 
seems to be fully entitled to credit ; it accords with the language 



''King Henry VI." — Part II. 233 

and deportment of the chief of the commons,, and we doubt not 
that such were his name and profession. It was, however, usual 
in such commotions to give to prominent actors, probably for 
purposes of concealment and security, fictitious and popular 
names. Thus we have seen that Wat Tyler assumed the name 
of Jack Straw. All the popular leaders appear thus to have 
borne names for the war. But Aylmere was not only called Jack 
Cade, for Polychronicon says he was ' of some named John 
Mendall.-* The chronicles furnish no proof that he ef er acknow- 
ledged the name of Cade. In his communications with the 
government he used merely the title of ' Captain of the Com- 
mons.-* Mackintosh characterizes him as ' a leader of disputed 
descent, who had been transmitted to posterity with the nick- 
name of John Cade. On him they bestowed the honourable 
name of John Mortimer, with manifest allusion to the claims of 
the house of Mortimer to the succession, which were, however, 
now indisputably vested in Richard, Duke of York.' It seems 
that the friends of the Duke of York favoured the insurrection, 
a fact of itself sufficient to attach dignity and importance to 
the movement. Hall and Holinshed agree in this statement. 
They describe him as '^ a certeine young man of a goodlie stature 
and right pregnaunt of wit, who was intised to take upon him 
the name of John Mortimer, coosine to the Duke of York, and 
not for a small policie, but thinking by that surname that those 
which favoured the house of the Earle of Marche would be 
assistant to him. And so indeed it came to passe."* If Aylmere 
permitted this title to be given him, he certainly did not use it 
in his addresses to the King and Parliament, nor in his letters 
which have been preserved. It is also certain that the name of 
Mortimer could not, in any event, have promoted any personal 
design ; and that he never claimed power, rank, or reward for 
himself, his simple title being The Captain, and his sole efforts 
confined to the amelioration of the condition of the people. So 
far from seeking revolution, he most emphatically proclaimed his 
loyalty, and all his acts were in the name of the king. The title 
of Mortimer may have been given him as a demonstration of 
respect, for Fabyan says that ^ the multitude named him 
Mortimer, and this kept the people wondrously togither.'' 

" The leader who assumed the bold attitude of calm resistance 
must have been, if a physician at that period, superior to most of 



2 34 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

his opponents in the limited learning of the age. His letters, 
his addresses to the King and Parliament, his interview with the 
commissioners of the court, and the general tenor of Ms proceed- 
ings, prove the possession of an intellect of no ordinary cultiva- 
tion and force; and his military skill and success indicate 
experience and sagacity as a soldier. His first measure, after 
assuming a position on Blackheath, was to proclaim distinctly 
the object of ' the assembly of tbe commons.^ We learn from 
Hall and Holinshed that — 

" He maintained also a correspondence with London, and his 
letters of safeguard to citizens passing to and from the camp and 
city, are formally and well drawn, and prove that even then he 
received supplies of money and arms from the capital. While thus 
organizing and disciplining his host, with a calmness and delibe- 
ration which manifests anything but the madness ascribed to him, 
' he devised,^ says Fabyan, * a bill of petitions to the king and 
his council, and showed therein what injuries and oppressions the 
poor commons suficred by such as were about the king.' This 
proceeding is thus characterized by Holinshed : ' And to the 
intent the cause of this glorious captain's coming thither, might 
be shadowed vnder a cloke of good meaning (though his intent 
nothing so) he sentvnto the king an humble supplication, afiirm- 
ing that his coming was not against his grace, but against such 
of his councellors as were loners of themselues and oppressors of 
the poor commonaltie : flatterers of the king and enemies of his 
honour ; suckers of his purse, and robbers of his subjects ; par- 
ciall to their friends, and extreame to their enimies; through 
bribes corrupted, and for indifferencie dooing nothing.' The 
Parliament was then in session; and this bill of complaint, 
together with the requests of the commons, was sent to that body 
as well as to the King. The ' Complaint of the Commons of Kent, 
and the causes of their assemblie on the Blackheathe,' comprises 
fifteen items, set forth with great clearness and force, and mani- 
festing as high an order of learning and ability as any state paper 
of the times. This Bill of Complaints, as given by Holinshed, 
afibrds conclusive evidence that Aylmere, instead of being the 
ignorant, ferocious, and vulgar ruffian generally supposed, was a 
patriot eminently enlightened and discreet. 

" The requests of this Bill of Complaints were disallowed by 
the council, whom they accused, and some days after the king 



" King Henry VI. ' ' — Part II. 235 

marclied ag"ainst the force under Aylmere ; but that leader seems 
to have been averse to the commencement of actual hostilities^ 
especially ag'ainst the king in person ; and he retired before him, 
taking" post at Seven Oak, when the king retui'ned to London. 
The withdrawal of Aylmere is considered, by the chroniclers, 
who can imagine no good of the people^s chief, a mere feint to 
entice the royal army into a more unfavourable position. The 
queen, ' that bare rule/ shortly after sent Sir Humphrey Stafford 
with an army, to disperse the rebels. The captain still desired 
to avoid the effusion of blood ; and we are told by Fabyan that, 
'when Sir Humphrey, with his company, drew near to Seven 
Oak, he was warned of the captain.'' But this generous caution 
and unusual moderation, doubtless ascribed to pusillanimity, did 
not avail ; and Aylmere met the inevitable issue with the skill 
and courage of a tried soldier, and defeated them with great loss. 
" After this important victory, the leader of the Commons, says 
Mackintosh, ^assumed the attire, ornaments and style of a 
knight ; and, under the title of captain, he professed to preserve 
the country by enforcing the rigid observance of discipline among 
his followers,' Having refreshed his people, he resumed his 
position on Blackheath, ' where he strongly encamped himself, 
diverse idle and vagrant persons,' says Holinshead, ' out of Sussex, 
Surrie, and other places, still increasing his number.' The king 
and his council were now fully aroused to a sense of their danger ; 
and they determined to have recourse to the policy of negotiation, 
promises and perfidy, found so effective in the previous insurrec- 
tion. They accordingly sent to the leader, whose humble 
' requests ' they had received with such disdain, the Archbishop 
of Canterbury and the Duke of Buckingham, to treat of an 
accommodation. The report of this interview, derived as it is 
from writers prompt to blacken Aylmere, and reluctant to admit 
the slightest point in his favour, establishes, beyond doubt, the 
elevation of his character and deportment. Fabyan says that the 
royal commissioners 'had with him long communication, and 
found him right discrete in his answers. Howbeit, they could 
not cause him to lay down his people, and submit him (uncondi- 
tionally) to the king's grace.' Holinshed's account after Hall, is 
more full and expressive. ' These lords found him sober in talke, 
wise in reasoning, arrogant in hart, and stiffe in opinion ; as 
who that by no means would grant to dissolve his armie, except 



236 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View, 

the king- in person would come to him, and assent to the things 
he would require/ The captain, it seems, remembered the ill 
faith practiced towards Wat Tyler, and was unwilling to place it 
in the power of the court to re-enact that tragedy. Subsequent 
events proved how just were his suspicions. 

" The king was alarmed by the firm attitude of Aylmere, and 
still more by the disaffection evident among his own followers. 
.... The captain, notwithstanding his recent victory, his great 
force, and the natural impatience of his host, had forborne to 
advance against the king-; but his retreat rendered some 
decisive action now necessary. Nothing was to be expected 
from the court. Time was pressing ; for delay multiplied his 
dangers, and- increased the difficulty of holding together and 
restraining so vast and undisciplined a multitude. His only 
course was to take possession of the capital, and redress, through 
such legal authorities as he found in existence, or upon the 
warrant of the nation-'s expressed will, the grievances under 
which the realm was groaning. This step was, however, 
attended with great difficulty and peril, arising from his own 
aversion to the assumption of permanent authority, and the 
absence of the Duke of York, who might then have taken upon 
him, as he did afterwards, the supreme control of affiiirs ; and 
from the character of his force and the absence of regular 
resources for its maintenance. To prevent the excesses so 
much to be apprehended, he rigidly enforced the laws ; or, as 
Fabyan has it, ' to the end to blind the more people, and to 
bring him in fame that he kept good justice, he beheaded there 
a petty captain of his named Parrys, for so much as he had 
offended against such ordinance as he had established in his 
host. And hearing that the king and his lords had thus de- 
parted, drew him near unto the city, so that upon the first day 
of July he entered the burgh of Southwark.'' Anxious to pro- 
ceed with the strictest regard to the peace and the privileges of 
the city, Aylmere, next day, caused the authorities of London 
to be convened. ' The Mayor called the Common Council at 
the Guildhall, for to purvey the understanding of these rebels, 
and other matters, in which assembly were divers opinions, so 
that some thought good that the said rebels should be received 
into the city, and some otherwise.'' — (Fabyan.) He was, how- 
ever, admitted. This submission to authority by a rebel at the 



^' King Henry FI." — Part II. 237 

head of a victorious army^ is, the age and circumstances con- 
sidered, a remarkable feature of the insurrection. ' The same 
afternoon, about five of the clock, the captain with his people 
entered by the Bridge : and when he came upon the draw-bridge, 
he hew the ropes that drew the bridge in sunder with his sword, 
and so passed into the city, and made in sundry places thereof 
proclamations in the king^s name, that no man, upon pain of 
death, should rob or take anything per force without paying 
therefor. By reason whereof he won many hearts of the 
commons of the city ; but,^ continues the charitable Fabyan, ^all 
was done to beguile the people/ .... Thus it seems that he 
acted in full concert with the authorities; that he did everything 
in his power to prevent and punish disorder ; and that so anxious 
was he to avoid popular tumult, that he withdrew his force from 
the city, and did not permit his people to enter it, ^ except at 
lawful times.^ The history of the times exhibits no instance of 
such consideration for the welfare of the people, on the part of 
monarchs or their barons, as is here manifested by ' the villainous 
rebel.^ 

" It was necessary that Lord Say should be brought to trial. 
As he was in the custody of Lord Scales, this must have taken 
place with the sanction and actual aid of the court. ' On the 
third day of July,' says Fabyan, ' the said captain entered again 
the city, and caused the Lord Say to be fetched from the Tower 
and led into Guildhall, where he was arraigned before the mayor 
and other of the king-'s justices.' Of his guilt there seems to 
have been neither doubt nor denial. Holinshed tells us that 
* being before the king's justices put to answer, he desired to be 
tried by his peeres, for the longer delaie of his life. The capteine 
perceiving his dilatorie plea, by force tooke him from the officers, 
and brought him to the standard in Cheape ; ' where he suffered 
military execution, a result which, in the excited state of public 
sentiment, probably could not have been averted, and which the 
heavy catalogue of his crimes, and the certainty that the queen, 
had time been afforded, would have shielded him, perhaps 
justified. William Croumer, his brother-in-law and instrument, 
and one of those charged before Parliament, suffered at the same 
time. These executions are bitterly denounced by the chroniclers ; 
but, according to their own accounts, Aylmere punished more of 
his own men for violations of the law, than he did of those whose 



•0 



8 Shakespeare, from an American Point of Vitw. 



crimes and cruelty had provoked the insurrection ; and it may- 
be doubted whether history afibrds an instance of greater modera- 
tion and lenity, under circumstances so peculiar, than were 
exhibited by him, with the oppressors of his country in his 
power, and a maddened people calling- for justice. 

" The leader of the Commons continued, from a regard for the 
public safety, to occupy his position in South wark until the 
sixth of July. During- this period it is alleged that, in two 
instances, he made requisitions upon wealthy citizens of London ; 
and, indeed, it was only by such means that so large a host 
could have been sustained. This appears to have alarmed the 
mayor and aldermen ; and it is also probable that the utmost 
vigilance and rigour did not wholly repress occasional outrages 
of a character to excite the fears of the more wealthy citizens. 
The aid of Lord Scallys and Sir Matthew Gough, ^ then having 
the Tower in guiding,^ was, under these apprehensions, solicited . 
to prevent the re-entrance of Aylmere into London. This 
induced a collision, ^and a battle or bloody scuffle was continued 
during the night on London Bridge, in which success seemed to 
incline to the insurgents.'' — (Mackintosh.) In the morning a 
truce for certain hours was effected, during which a negotiation 
took place between the Archbishop of Canterbury, representing 
the king, and the captain of the Commons. On the part of the 
former, everything would naturally be j)romised, for it was 
designed that no promise should be observed ; and a covenant 
for all that was demanded was as readily violated as one for a 
part. The leader of the Commons must have been conscious 
that his force could only be maintained by a forcible and 
necessarily unpopular levy of contributions; and that even if 
maintained, their impatience of discipline and anxiety to return 
to their homes rendered them unfit for the protracted struggle 
that seemed impending. To continue in the field threatened the 
worst horrors of civil war, a war in which he could have but 
little hope of long restraining his followers. Every consideration 
of humanity and patriotism seemed therefore to dictate an 
acceptance of the proffered concessions of the court. The compact 
was therefore concluded ; and the Commons thus won a seeming 
triumph. What was covenanted on the part of the court does 
not appear ; for the chroniclers are silent on that head, and tho 
people 'had no historians.'' Fabyan, however, informs us that 



^' King Henry VI" — Part II. 239 

'the Archbishop of Canterbury^ then Chancellor of England^ 
sent a general pardon to the captain for himself, and another for 
his people ; by reason whereof he and his company departed the 
same night out of Southwark^ and so returned every man to his 
home.' 

" The sequel is briefly told j it is the old tale of perfidy and 
blood. The pardon was immediately revoked. ' Proclamations 
were made in divers places of Kent, of Southsex, and Sowthery, 
that who might take the aforesaid Jack Cade, either alive or 
dead, should have a thousand marks for his travayle.'' He was 
pursued and slain ; * and so being dead was brought into South- 
wark. And upon the morrow the dead corpse was drawn through 
the high streets of the city, unto Newgate, and there headed and 
quartered, whose head was then sent to London Bridge, and his 
four quarters were sent to four sundry towns of Kent.' — 
(Fabyan.) '' 

Nothing can gainsay these historical facts ; and to adopt the 
expression of Judge Conrad, it would be difficult to conceive a 
leadei' of nobler or purer purposes than Cade, or ^' to imagine 
holier motives to justify resistance to oppression,^' than those 
above set forth. And yet we behold how our poet, who is still 
worshipped as a god by the English-speaking race and who 
almost divides the authority of the Bible in every American 
as well as English household, deliberately inverts every fact, in 
the interest of falsehood, selfishness and tyranny. 



240 Shakespeare, from an A^nerican Point of View. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

"king henry VI." — PAET II. (CONTINUED). 
REBELLION OP CADE. 

The foregoing" historical facts, when read in contrast with our 
poet^s wanton perversion of them in the above entitled play, 
bring his character for truth and fair dealing to a crisis. How- 
ever much we may have been disposed to humour other portions 
of his text, and to tread fastidiously when charging him with 
want of sympathy for the poorer classes, it is obvious that there 
can be no two opinions about his treatment of Cade; and we 
resign ourselves, without further struggle, to the feeling of pain 
and disappointment which must afflict every admirer of Shake- 
speare^s genius, at his deficiency of better nature. 

Unfortunately, there is no way of conceiving an excuse which 
can be creditable to our poet for his misrepresentation of the 
Kentish patriot. There was no uncertainty about the sources of 
his information. He had the truth laid before him by the same 
chroniclers whom he had taken as his guides in his previous 
dramatic histories; but here, when these accepted servants of 
his muse present him with a glorious character in a man of 
humble birth, he wilfully falsifies every material fact concerning 
him, and consigns the popular cause he represents, to ridicule 
not only, but even to execration. The daring young leader, 
who is described by Hall and Holinshed as " a certain young 
man of goodlie stature, and right pregnaunt of wit"*^ (intellect), 
he deliberately represents as a mean, vulgar clown ; and, in the 
very face of the proofs that Cade maintained a correspondence 
with the king's representatives at London, and that " his letters 
of safeguard to citizens passing to and fro from the camp and 
city were formally and well drawn/' our poet chooses to make 
him figure as an utterly illiterate brute, who condemns persons 
to death merely for knowing how to read and write. 



'' King Hemy Vir — Part I L 241 

What makes this more singular is, that the natural instinct of 
a poet should have led Shakespeare to the cause of the Liberator 
and the People. The theme was magnificent. The situation was 
new to letters and the stage. The temptations to dramatic effect 
were almost irresistible ; and how all these inducements to the 
truth could have been resisted, with the example of even the old 
court chroniclers to invite the poet towards liberality, is a matter 
purely for amazement. 

It could hardly have been possible that such extreme syco- 
phancy was gratifying to a nobleman of such intellectual breadth 
as Essex, nor yet to his other patron the young Earl of Southamp- 
ton ; for they were knights, and the generous spirit .of chivalry 
had already for generations been emulating Christianity, in 
inculcating admiration and respect for courage and high purpose, 
even in an enemy. We are thrown back upon our conjectures, 
therefore, hopeless of a reason, except between toadyism and 
venality, and even between these we are unable to conceive a 
motive adequate to the perversion. The incident, consequently, 
leaves us as much puzzled as we were by our poet^s complacent 
patronage of the unparalleled perfidy of Prince John of Lancaster, 
and we therefore, remain still unsettled as to the problem con- 
cerning his conscience and his heart. 

We may now proceed to the examination of the text of the 
Second Part of " King Henry VI./^ giving the illustrations 
which bear upon the popular branch of our inquiry as they 
come in order. The first of these occurs in the third scene 
of Act I,, where York denounces an armourer's apprentice : — 

YoEK. Base, dunghill villain, and, mechanical, 

I'll liave thy head for this thy traitor's speech. — 

I do beseech your royal majesty, 

Let him have all the rigour of the law. 

The next presents a singular instance of the extent of Shake- 
speare^s familiarity with the intricacies of the Roman Catholic 
faith. The court is assembled in the palace at St. Alban's ; and 
King Henry, hearing a tumult outside, is informed that the towns- 
men are coming in procession to present to his majesty a blind 
man, who had been miraculously restored to sight, upon which 
the king remarks : — ■ 

Great is his comfort in this earthly vale. 
Although hy sight his sin be multiplied. 



242 Shakespeare^ from an American Point of View. 

" That is to say/^ remarks Dowden, in his admirable essay on 
Shakespeare^'s mind and art, '' if we had the good fortune to be 
deprived of all of our senses and appetites^ we should have a fair 
chance of being quite spotless ; yet, let us thank God for His 
mysterious goodness to this man ! " Dowden's translation of 
this couplet is, no doubt, correct, for in turning over the leaves of 
" The Imitation of Christ/'' by Thomas a Kempis, a standard 
book of Catholic worship, I find, what appears to me to be 
the fountain of this theory, in the following paragraphs : — 

" For every inclination which appears good is not presently 
to be followed, nor every contrary affection at first sight to be 
rejected, 

" Even in good desires and inclinations it is expedient some- 
time to use some restraint, lest by too much eagerness thou 
incur distraction of mind; lest thou create scandal to others 
by not keeping within discipline, or even lest, by the opposi- 
tion which thou mayst meet with from others, thou be suddenly 
disturbed and fall/'' ^ 

• The next instance applies to Shakespeare's aristocratic lean- 
ings : — 

YoEK. Let pale-faced fear Tceep with tJie mean-horn man, 
And find no harbour in a royal heart. 
* * * 

And for the minister of my intent, 

I have seduced a headstrong Kentishman, 

John Cade of Ashford. 

To make commotion, as full well he can. 

Under the title of John Mortimer. 

In Ireland have I seen this stubborn Cade 

Oppose himself against a troop of kernes ; 

And fought so long till that his thighs with darts 

Were almost like a sharp-quill'd porcupine : 

And, in the end being rescued, I have seen 

Him caper upright, like a wild Morisco ; 

Shaking the bloody darts, as he his bells. 

Full often, like a shag-hair'd crafty kerne, 

Hath he conversed with the enemy, 

And undiscover'd come to me again, 

And given me notice of their villainies. 

This devil here shall be my substitute ; 

^ Thomas a Kempis' " Imitation of Christ," p. 206, Edition of Benziger 
Brothers, New York, 1S73. 



'' King He7iry VI," — Part II. 243 

For that John Mortimer, which now is dead, 
In face, in gait, in speech, he doth resemble : 
By this I shall perceive the commons' mind. 
How they affect the house and claim of York. 
Say, he be taken, rack'd, and tortured, 
1 know, no pain they can inflict upon him 
Will make him say I moved him to those arms. 
Say, that he thrive, as 't is great like he will, 
"Why, then from Ireland come I with strength. 
And reap the harvest which that rascal sow'd ; 
For, Humphrey being dead, as he shall be. 
And Henry put apart, then next for me. 

Act III. Scene 1. 

The rumour of the above adoption of Cade by the Duke of 
York was doubtless greedily accepted by Shakespeare from the 
chroniclers, with the view of degrading Cadets purposes in the 
rising just then about to follow. 

The following occurs in a quarrel, during the next scene, 
between Suffolk and Warwick : — 

Sup Blunt-witted lord, ignoble in demeanour ! 
If ever lady wrong'd her lord so much. 
Thy mother took into her blameful bed 
Some stern untutor'd churl, and nohle stoch 
Was graft ivith crab-tree slip ; whose fruit thou art, 
And never of the Nevil's noble race. 

^ ^ "T? 

'Tis like, the commons, rude unpolish'd hinds. 
Could send such message to their sovereign : 
But you, my lord, were glad to be employ 'd, 
To show how quaint an orator you are : 
But all the honour Salisbury hath won, 
Is — that he was the lord ambassador. 
Sent from a sort of tinkers to the king. 

Suffolk being taken prisoner by the captain of a boat, is 
threatened with immediate death, without hope of ransom, and 
thus attempts to overawe his captor : — 

SxJF. Obscure and lotoly sioain. King Senry's hlood. 
The honourable hlood of Lancaster, 
Must not be shed by such a jaded groom. 
Hast thou not kiss'd my hand, and held my stirrup ? 
Bare-headed plodded by my foot-cloth mule. 
And thought thee happy when I shook my head ? 
How often hast thou waited at my cup, 



244 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

Fed from my trenclier, kneel'd down at the board, 
When I have feasted with Queen Margaret ? 
Eemember it, and let it make thee crest-fall'n ; 
Ay, and allay this thy abortive pride : 
How in our voiding lobby hast thou stood, 
And duly waited for my coming forth ? 
* * # 

that I were a god, to shoot forth thunder 
Upon tJiese jpaltry, servile, ahject drudges I 

Small things make base men proud : this villain here, 

Being captain of a pinnace, threatens more 

Than Bargulus, the strong, lUyrian pirate. 

Drones such not eagles' blood, hut roh beehives. 

It is impossible, that I should die 

Sy such a loioly vassal as thyself. 

Thy words move rage, and not remorse in me : 

1 go of message from the qiieen to France ; 

I charge thee, waft me safely cross the channel. 

J£, Jf. ^ 

^ W W 

True nobility is exempt from fear : 
More can I bear than you dare execute ! 

NeverthelesSj the captain of the pinnace lays SufFolk^s head on 
the gunwale of his boat and strikes it off. 

Act IV. Scene 2. — Blackheath. 
Drum. Mnter Cade, Dick the Butcher, Smith the Weaver, and others in 

great number. 

Cade. We, John Cade, so termed of our supposed father, — 

Dick. Or rather, of stealing a cade of herrings. \_Aside. 

Cade. for our enemies shall fall before us, inspired with the spirit 

of putting down kings and princes, — Command silence. 

Dick. Silence ! 

Cade. My father was a Mortimer, — 

Dick. He was an honest man, and a good bricklayer, \_Aside. 

Cade. My mother a Plantagenet, — 

Dick. I knew her well, she was a midwife. \_Aside. 

Cade. My wife descended of the Lacies, — 

Dick. She was, indeed, a pedlar's daughter, and sold many laces. \_Aside. 

Smith. But, now of late, not able to travel with her furred pack, she 
washes bucks here at home. \_Aside. 

Cade. Therefore am I of an honourable house. 

Dick. Ay, by my faith, the field is honourable ; and there was he born, 
under a hedges for his father had never a house, but the cage. \_Aside. 

Cade. Valiant I am. 

Smith. 'A must needs ; for beggary is valiant. \^Aside. 

Cade. I am able to endure much. 



" Kmg Henry VI y — Part II. 245 

Dick. K'o question of that ; for I have seen liim whipped three market 
days together. \_Aside. 

Cade. I fear neither sword nor fire. 

Smith. He need not fear the sword, for his coat is of proof. \Aside. 

Dick. But, methinks, he should stand in fear of fii^e, being burnt i' the 
hand for stealing o£ sheep. \_Aside. 

Cade. Be brave, then ; for your captain is brave, and vows reformation. 
There shall be, in England, seven half-penny loaves sold for a penny : the 
three-hooped pot shall have ten hoops ; and I will make it felony, to drink 
small beer: all the realm shall be in common, and in Cheapside shall my 
palfrey go to grass. And, when I am king, (as king I will be) — 

All. God save your majesty ! 

Cade. I thank you, good people : — there shall be no money ; all shall eat 
and drink on my score ; and I will apparel them all in one livery, that they 
may agree like brothers, and worship me their lord. 

Dick. The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers. 

Cade. Nay, that I mean to do. Is not this a lamentable thing that of the 
skin of an innocent lamb should be made parchment ? that parchment, being 
scribbled o'er should undo a man ? Some say, the bee stings : but I say, 'tis 
the bee's wax, for I did but seal once to a thing, and I was never mine own 
man since. How now ! who's there .P 

Enter some, bringing in the Clerh of ChatJiam. 

Smith. The clerk of Chatham : he can write, and read, and cast accompt- 

Cade. 0, monstrous ! 

Smith. We took him setting of boys' copies. 

Cade. Here's a villain ! 

Smith. H' as a book in his pocket, with red letters in 't. 

Cade. Nay, then he is a conjuror. 

Dick. Nay, he can make obligations and write court -hand. 

Cade. I am sorry for 't : the man is a proper man, on mine honour ; unless 
I find him guilty, he shall not die, — Come hither, sirrah, I must examine 
thee : what is thy name ^ 

Cleek. Emmanuel. 

Dick. They use to write it on the top of letters. — 'T will go hard with 
you. 

Cade. Let me alone. — Dost thou use to write thy name, or hast thou a 
mark to thyself, like an honest, plain- dealing man ? 

Cleek. Sir, I thank God I have been so well brought up that I can write 
my name. 

All. He hath confessed : away with him ! he's a villain and a traitor. 

Cade. Away with him, I say ! hang him with his pen and ink-horn about 
his neck. {_Exeunt some with the Clerh. 

JEnter Michael. 

Mich. Where's our general ? 

Cade. Here I am, thou particular fellow. 

Mich. Fly, fly, fly ! Sir Humphrey Stafibrd and his brother are hard by, 
with the king's forces. 

ir 



246 Shakespeare, from an Ainerican Point of View. 

Cade. Stand ! villain, stand ! or I'll fell thee down. He shall be encoun- 
tered with a man as good as himself: he is but a knight is 'a? 
Mich. No, 

Cade. To equal him, I will make myself a knight presently. \Kneels?\ 
Rise up Sir John Mortimer. \JRises?^ Now have at him. 
Enter Sir Humphrey Staffoed, and William his Brother, with Drum 

and Forces. 
Staf. Rehellious hinds, the filth and scum of Kent, 

Mark'd for the gallows, lay your weapons down : 
Home to your cottage, ^br^a^e this groom. 
The king is merciful, if you revolt. 
W. Staff. But angry, wrathful, and inclined to blood, 

If you go forward : therefore, yield or die. 
Cade. As for these silken-coated slaves, I pass not ; 

It is to you, good people, that I speak. 
O'er whom in time to come I hope to reign ; 
Eor I am rightful heir unto the crown. 
Staf. Villain ! thy father was a plasterer ; 

And thou thyself a shearman, art thou not.'' 
Cade. And Adam was a gardener. 

W. Staff. And what of that ? 
Cade. Marry, this : — Edmund Mortimer, earl of March, 

Married the duke of Clarence's daughter, did he not ? 
Staf. Ay, sir. 

Cade. By her he had two children at one birth. 

W. Staff. That's false. 

Cade. Ay, there's the question ; but, I say, 'tis true. 

The elder of them, being put to nurse, 
Was by a beggar-woman stol'n away ; 
And, ignorant of his birth and parentage, 
Became a bricklayer when he came to age. 
His son am I : deny it, if you can. 
Dick. Nay, 'tis too true ; therefore, he shall be king. 

Smith. Sir, he made a chimney in my fathei-'s house, and the bricks are 
alive at this day to testify it ; therefore, deny it not. 

Staf. And will you credit this base drudge's words, 

That speaks he knows not what ? 
All. Ay, marry, will we ; therefore, get ye gone. 
W. Staff. Jack Cade, the Duke of York hath taught you this. 
Cade. He lies, for I invented it myself. [Aside.'] — Go to, sirrah ; tell the 
king from me, that for his father's sake, Henry the Fifth, in whose time boys 
went to span-counter for French crowns, I am content he shall reign ; but I'll 
be protector over him. 

Dick. And, furthermore, we'll have the Lord Say's head for selling the 
dukedom of Maine. 

Cade. And good reason ; for thereby is England maimed, and fain to go 
with a staff, but that my puissance holds it up. Fellow kings, I tell you that 



" King Henry F7." — Part II. 247 

that Lord Say liatli gelded tlie commonwealth, and made it an eunuch ; and 
more than that, he can speak French, and therefore he is a traitor. 
Staf. gross and miserable ignorance ! 

Cade. Nay, answer, if you can ; the Frenchmen are our enemies ; go to, 
then, I ask but this ; can he that speaks with the tongue of an enemy be a 
good counsellor, or no ? 

All. No, no ; and therefore we'll have his head. 

W. Staff. Well, seeing gentle words will not prevail, 

Assail them with the army of the king. 
Staf. Herald, away ; and, throughout every town, 

Proclaim them traitors that are up with Cade, 
That those which fly before the battle ends, 
May, even in their wives' and children's sight, 
Be hang'd up for example at their doors, — 
All you, that be the king's friends, follow me. 

\JExeunt tlie tioo Staffoeds and Forces. 
Cade. And you, that love the commons, follow me. — 

Now show yourselves men ; 'tis for liberty. 
We will not leave one lord, one gentleman ; 
Spare none but such as go in clouted shoon, 
For they are thrift}'^, honest men, and such 
As would (but that they dare not) take our parts. 
Dice. They are all in ordei-, and march toward us. 

Cade. But then are we in order, when we are most out of order. Come ; 
march forward. \_Exeunt. 

The above is the first use I find of the word " liberty " by 
Shakespeare in the form of an appeal for human rights ; butj 
inasmuch as he puts the exclamation in the mouth of a man who 
executes people for reading and writings the mention is obvi- 
ously intended to degrade the word, and to represent only general 
licentiousness and licence. 

Scene 3. — Another part of BlacJcJieath. 
Alarums. The two Parties enter, and fight, and both the Staffoeds are 

slain. 

Cade. Where's Dick, the butcher of Ashford ? 

Dick. Here, sir. 

Cade. They fell before thee like sheep and oxen, and thou behavedst thy- 
self as if thou hadst been in thine own slaughter-house : therefore, thus will 
I reward thee, — The Lent shall be as long again as it is ; and thou shalt have 
a licence to kill for a hundred years, lacking one. 

Dick. I desire no more. 

Cade. And, to speak the truth, thou deservest no less. This monument of 
the victory wUl I bear : \_Putting on Staffoed's armour^, and the bodies 
shall be dragged at my horses' heels, till I do come to London, where we will 
have the mayor's sword borne before us. 



248 Shakespeare, fro7ii an American Point of View. . 

• 

Dice. If we mean to tlirive and do good, break open tlae jails, and let out 
the prisoners. 

Cade. Fear not that, I warrant thee. Come ; let's march towards 
London. \JExeunt. 

Scene 4. — London. — A Room in the Palace. 
Enter a Messenger. 
K. Hen. How now ! what news ? why com'st thou in such haste ? 
Mess. The rebels are in Southwark ; Fly, my lord ? 
Jack Cade proclaims himself lord Mortimer, 
Descended from the duke of Clarence house ; 
And calls your grace usurper, openly, 
And vows to crown himself in Westminster. 
His army is a ragged multitude 
Of hinds and peasants, rude and merciless : 
Sir Humphrey Stafford and his brothei-'s death 
Hath given them heart and courage to proceed ; 
All scholars, lawyers, courtiers, gentlemen 
They call — false caterpillars, and intend their death. 
Enter another Messenger. 
2 Mess. Jack Cade hath gotten London-bridge ; the citizens 
Fly and forsake their houses ; 
The rascal people, thirsting after prey. 
Join with the traitor ; and they jointly swear, 
To spoU the city, and your royal court. 

.M. je. 4e. 

•TV" w w 

Scene 6. — The Same. — Cannon-street. 
Enter Jack Cade, and his Followers. He striJces his staff on London- 
stone. 
Cade, Now is Mortimer lord of this city. And here, sitting upon London- 
stone, I charge and command, that, of the city's cost, the conduit run 

nothing but claret wine this first year of our reign. And now, henceforward, 
it shall be treason for any that calls me other than — ^lord Mortimer. 
Enter a Soldier, running. 
Sold. Jack Cade ! Jack Cade ! 

Cade. Knock him down there. \.They hill Mm. 

Smith. If this fellow be wise, he'll never call you Jack Cade more ; I 
think, he hath a very fair warning. 

Dick. My lord, there's an army gathered together in Smithfield. 
Cade. Come then, let's go fight with them : But, first, go and set London 
Bridge on fire ; and, if you can, bm-n down the Tower too. Come, let's 
away. [Exeunt. 

Scene 7. — The Same. — Smithfield. 
Alarum. Enter, on one side, Cade and his Company ; on the other, 
Citizens, and the King's Forces, headed hy Matthew Gough. They 
fight : the Citizens are routed, and Matthew Gotigh is slain. 
Cade. So, sirs : — Now, go some and puU down the Savoy ; others to the 
inns of coui-t ; down with them all. 



'' King Henry VI" — Part II. 249 

Dick. I have a suit unto your lordship. 

Cade. Be it a lordship, thou shalt have it for that word. 

Dick. Only, that the laws of England may come out of your mouth. 

John. Mass, 'twill be sore law then ; for he was thrust in the mouth with 
a spear, and 'tis not whole yet. ^Aside. 

Smith. Nay, John, it will be stinking law ; for his breath stinks with 
eating toasted cheese. [^Aside. 

Cade. I have thought upon it, it shall be so. Away, bum all the records 
of the realm ; my mouth shall be the parliament of England. 

John. Then we are like to have biting statutes, unless his teeth be pulled 
out. lAside. 

Cade. And henceforward all things shall be in common. 
Enter a Messenger. 

Mess. My lord, a prize, a prize ! here's the lord Say, which sold the towns 
in France, he that made us pay one-and-twenty fifteens, and one shilling to 
the pound, the last subsidy. 

Enter Geoege Bevis, loith the Lord Sat. 

Cade. Well, he shall be beheaded for it ten times. — Ah, thou say, thou 
serge, nay, thou buckram lord ! now art thou within point blank of our 
jurisdiction regal. "What canst thou answer to my majesty, for giving up of 
Normandy unto Monsieur Basimecu, the dauphin of France ? Be it known 
unto thee by these presents, even the presence of Lord Mortimer, ^hat I am 
the besom that must sweep the court clean of such filth as thou art. Thou 
hast most traitorously corrupted the youth of the realm in erecting a 
grammar-school : and whereas, before, our forefathers had no other books but 
the score and the tally, thou hast caused printing to be used ; and, contrary 
to the king, his crown, and dignity, thou has built a paper-mill. It will be 
proved to thy face, that thou hast men about thee, that usually talk of a 
noun, and a verb, and such abominable words as no Christian ear can endure 
to hear. Thou hast appointed justices of peace to call poor men before them 
about matters they were not able to answer : moreover, thou hast put them 
in prison ; and because they could not read, thou hast hanged them ; when, 
indeed, only for that cause they have been most worthy to live. Thou dost 
ride in a foot-cloth, dost thou not. 

Sat. What of that .P 

Cade. Marry, thou oughtest not to let thy horse wear a cloak, when 
bonester men than thou go in their hose and doublets. 

Dick. And work in their shirt too ; as myself, for example, that am a 
butcher. 

Sat. You men of Kent, — 

Dick. What say you of Kent ? 

Sat. Nothing but this : 'tis bona terra, mala gens. 

Cade. Away with him ! away with him ! he speaks Latin. 

Sat. Hear me but speak, and bear me where you will. 

Unless you be possess'd with devilish spirits, 
You cannot but forbear to murder me. 



250 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

This tongue hath parley 'd unto foreign kings 
For your behoof. — 
Cade. Tut ! when struck'st thou one blow in the field ? 
Sat. Great men have reaching hands : oft have 1 struck 

Those that I never saw, and struck them dead. 
Geo. 0, monstrous coward ! what, to come behind folks ? 
Sat. These cheeks are pale for watching for your good. 
Cade. Give him a box 0' the ear, and that will make them red again. 
Say. Long sitting, to determine poor men's causes, 

Hath made me full of sickness and diseases. 
Cade. Ye shall have a hempen caudle, then, and the help of hatchet. 
Dick. Why dost thou quiver, man ? 
Sat. The palsy, and not fear, provoketh me. 

Cade. Nay, he nods at us ; as who should say, I'U be even with you. I'll 
see if his head stand steadier on a pole, or no. Take him away and behead 
him. 

Sat. Tell me, wherein have I offended niost .P 

* » * • 

Whom have I injured, that ye seek my death ? 
These hands are free from guiltless blood-shedding. 
This breast from harbouring foul deceitful thoughts. 
! let me live. 
Cade.*I feel remorse in myself with his words ; but I'll bridle it ; he shall 
die, 'an it be but for pleading so well for his life. — Away with him ! he has a 
familiar under his tongue : he speaks not 0' God's name. Go, take him away, 
I say, and strike off his head presently ; and then break into his son-in-law's 
house, sir James Cromer, and strike off his head, and bring them both upon 
two poles hither. 
All. It shall be done. 

Sat. Ah, countrymen ! if when you make your prayers, 

God shall be so obdurate as yourselves. 
How would it fare with your departed souls ? 
And therefore yet relent and save my life. 
Cade. Away with him, and do as I command ye. \_Exeunt some with 
Lord Sat.] The proudest peer in this realm shall not wear a head on his 
shoulders, unless he pay me tribute : there shall not a maid be married, but 
she shall pay to me her maidenhead, ere they have it. 3Ien shall hold of me 
in cajpite : and we charge and command that their wives be as free as 
heart can wish, or tongue can tell. 

Let me here remark that I can see no reason why Shakespeare 
should be denied the learned languages^ since Jack Cade can 
quote Latin. 

Dick. My lord, when shall we go to Cheapside, and take up commodities 
upon our bills ? 

Cade. Marry, presently. 



'' King Henry Vi:'— Part II. 251 

All. 0, brave ! 

He-enter Rebels ioith the heads of Lord Sat and his son-in-law. 
Cade. But is not this braver ? — Let them kiss one another, for they loved 
well when they were alive. [Joiol them together7\ Now part them again, 
lest they consult about the giving up of some more towns in France. Soldiers, 
defer the spoil of the city untU night ; for, with these borne before us, instead 
of maces, will we ride through the streets : and at every corner have them 
kiss. — Away ! \JExeunt. 

Scene 8. — SouthwarJc. 
Alarum. Enter Cade, and all his Hahblement. 
Cade. Up Fish-street ! down Saint Magnus' corner ! kill and knock down ! 
throw them into Thames ! — \^A Parley sounded, then a 'Retreat?^ What 
noise is this I hear ? Dare any be so bold to sound retreat or parley, when I 
command them kill 'i 

Enter Buckingham, and Old Cliffobd, with Forces. 
Buck. Ay, here they be that dare, and will disturb thee : 
Know, Cade, we come ambassadors from the king 
Unto the commons whom thou hast misled : 
And here pronounce free pardon to them all, 
That will forsake thee, and go home in peace. 
Clif. What say ye, countrymen ? will ye repent 
And yield to mercy, whilst 'tis offer 'd you, 
Or let a rebel lead you to your deaths ? 
Who loves the king, and will embrace his pardon, 
Fling up his cap, and say — God save his majesty ! 
Who hateth him, and honours not his father, 
Henry the Fifth, that made all France to quake. 
Shake he his weapon at us, and pass by. • 

Ail. God save the king ! God save the king ! 
Cade. What, Buckingham, and Clifford, are ye so brave ? — And you base 
peasants, do ye believe him ? will you needs be hanged with your pardons 
about your necks ? Hath my sword therefore broke through London Gates, 
that you should leave me at the White Hart in Southwark ? I thought, ye 
would never have given out these arms, till you had recovered your ancient 
freedom : but you are all recreants, and dastards ; and delight to live in 
slavery to the nobility. Let them break your backs with burdens, take your 
houses over your heads, ravish your wives and daughters before your faces : 
For me, — I will make shift for one ; and so — God's curse light upon you all. 
All. We'll follow Cade, we'll follow Cade. 

Clif. Is Cade the son of Henry the Fifth, 

That thus you do exclaim — you'll go with him ? 
Wni he conduct you through the heart of France, 
And make the meanest of you earls and dukes ? 
Alas, he hath no home, no place to fly to ; 
Nor knows he how to live, but by the spoil, 
Unless by robbing of your friends, and us. 
Wer't not a shame, that whilst you live at jar. 



252 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

The fearful French, whom you late vanquished. 
Should make a start o'er seas, and vanquish you? 
Methinks already, in this civil broil, 
I see them lording it in London streets, 
Crying — Villageois ! unto all they meet. 
Better, ten thousand base-born Cades miscarry. 
Than you should stoop unto a Frenchman's mercy. 
To France, to France, and get what you have lost; 
Spare England, for it is your native coast : 
Henry hath money, you are strong and manly ; 
God on our side, doubt not of victory. 
All. a Clifford ! a Clifford ! we'll follow the king, and Clifford. 
Cade. Was ever feather so lightly blown to and fro, as this multitude ? the 
name of Henry the Fifth hales them to an hundred mischiefs, and makes 
them leave me desolate. I see them lay their heads together, to surprise me : 
my sword make way for me; for here is no staying. In despite of the devils 
and hell, have through the very midst of you ! and heavens and honour be 
witness, that no want of resolution in me, but only my followers' base and 
ignominious treasons, makes me betake to my heels. \^Exit. 

Buck. What, is he fled .? go, some, and follow him ; 
And he, that brings his head unto the king 
Shall have a thousand crowns for his reward. 

\_Exeunt some of them. 
Follow me, soldiers ; we'll devise a mean ; 
To reconcile you all unto the king. \_Exeunt. 

Scene 10. — Kent. Iden's Garden 
Mnter Cade. 
'Cade. Fy on ambition ! fy on myself; that have a sword, and yet am 
ready to famish ! These five days have I hid me in these woods ; and durst 
not peep out, for all the country is lay'd for me ; but now am I so hungry, 
that if I might have a lease of my life for a thousand years, I could stay no 
longer. Wherefore, on a brick wall have I climbed into this garden ; to see 
if I can eat grass, or pick a sallet another while, which is not amiss to cool 
a man's stomach this hot \\-eather. And, I think, this word sallet was born 
to do me good : for, many a time, but for a sallet, my brain-pan had been 
cleft with a brown bill ; and, many a time, when I have been dry, and 
bravely marching, it hath serv'd me instead of a quart pot to drink in ; And 
now the one word sallet must serve me to feed on. 

Enter Iden, loith Servants. 
Iden. Lord, who would live turmoiled in the court, 
And may enjoy such quiet walks as these ? 
This small inheritance, my father left me, 
Contenteth me, and is worth a monarchy. 
I seek not to wax great by others' waning ; 
Or gather wealth, I care not with what envy ; 
SufSceth, that I have maintains my state. 
And sends the poor well pleased from my gate. 



'' King Henry Vi:'— Part 11. 253 

Cade. Hei-e's the lord of the soil come to seize me for a stray, for entering 
his fee-simple without leave. Ah, villain, thou wilt betray me, and get a 
thousand crowns of the king for carrying my head to him : but I'll make 
thee eat iron like an ostrich, and swallow my sword like a great pin, ere thou 
and I part. 

Ids]S'. Why, rude companion, whatsoe'er thou be, 

I know thee not ; Why then should I betray thee ? 
Is't not enough to break into my garden. 
And, like a thief, to come to rob my grounds, 
Climbing my walls in spite of me the owner. 
But thou wilt brave me with these saucy terms ? 
Cade. Brave thee ? ay, by the best blood that ever was broached, and 
beard thee too. Look on me well : 1 have eat no meat these five days : yet, 
come thou and thy five men, and if I do not leave you all as dead as a door 
nail, I pray God, I may never eat grass more. 

Iden. Nay, it shall ne'er be said while England stands, 
That Alexander Iden, an esquire of Kent, 
Took odds to combat a poor famish'd man. 
Oppose thy stedfast gazing eyes to mine. 
See if thou canst outface me with thy looks. 
Set limb to limb, and thou art far the lesser ; 
Thy hand is but a finger to my fist ; 
Thy leg a stick, compared with this truncheon ; 
My foot shall fight with all the strength thou hast ; 
And if my arm be heaved in the air. 
Thy grave is digg'd already in the earth. 
As for more words, whose greatness answers words. 
Let this my sword report what speech forbears. 
Cade. By my valour, the most complete champion that ever I heard. 
Steel, if thou turn the edge, or cut not out the burley-boned clown in chines 
of beef ere thou sleep in thy sheath, I beseech God on m,y knees, thou mayest 
be turned to hobnails. \_Tliey figlit. Cade falls.'] 0, I am slain ! famine, 
and no other, hath slain me ; let ten thousand devils come against me, and 
give me but the ten meals I have lost, and I'd defy them all. Wither, 
garden, and be henceforth a- burying-place to all that do dwell in this house, 
because the unconquered soul of Cade is fled. 

Iden. Is't Cade that I have slain, that monstrous traitor 1 
Sword, I will hallow thee for this thy deed. 
And hang thee o'er my tomb, when I am dead : 
Ne'er shall this blood be wiped from thy point. 
But thou shalt wear it as a herald's coat. 
To emblaze the honour that thy master got. 
Cade. Iden, farewell ; and be proud of thy victory. Tell Kent from me, 
she hath lost her best man, and exhort all the world to be cowards ; for I, 
that never feared any, am vanquished by famine, not by valour. \I)ies. 

Iden. How much thou wrong'st me, heaven be my judge. 

Die, damned wretch, the curse of him that hare thee ! 



2 54 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

And as I thrust tliy body witli my sword, 
So wish I, I might thrust thy soul to hell, 
S.ence will I drag thee headlong by the heels, 
Unto a dunghill, which shall he thy grave. 
And there cut off thy most ungracious head ; 
Which I will bear in triumph to the king, 
Leaving thy trunk for crows to feed upon. 

\TLxit, dragging out the Body. 

This closes the cruel caricature and defamation of a leader 
of the stamp of William Tell, E-ienzi, or Marco Bozzaris, and whoj 
but for Shakespeare, would have been the theme of many a 
lofty lyre ; perhaps the subject for ag-es, of the prayer and song 
of the nation whose good fortune it had been to profit by his 
sacrifices. Truly English worship of social superiority is almost 
inexplicable when contrasted with the decorous subjection to 
lawful authority to be found in other lands; but with such 
examples as this play before us, we know where to trace the 
infatuation to its source ; and it is melancholy to reflect, that a 
transcendent genius, who could have done so much to lift popular 
thought, should always have endeavoiired to degrade it. Shake- 
speare might have condemned Cade and his cause in reason- 
able terms, and been to some extent forgiven, but the spon- 
taneous and malignant execration which he lavishes upon the 
dead patriot, in the interest of the nobles, is simply intolerable. 
Indeed, it would be a positive relief to us, to be able to 
attribute the political tendencies of Shakespeare's text to Sir 
Francis Bacon, who was educated to despise the People. The 
charm which attends our poet's genius still prevails, but the 
spell has lost a great portion of its force, and can no longer prevent 
the condemnation of the poet's principles by the English-speaking 
and liberty- loving people of America. And, as much may be 
said for the rugged intelligence and resolute progress of the 
present liberty -loving English masses. 



^^ King Henry VI y — Part 11. 255 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

" KING HENRY Vl/-* PAET III. 

The Third Part of " Henry VI." affords us fewer illustrations 
than any of the previous plays. The first incident which strikes 
our attention appears in the second scene of Act 1, and bears 
upon the question of Shakespeare^s legal acquirements ; inasmuch 
as it exhibits a very correct idea, as far as it goes, of the legal 
crime of " perjury/^ as distinguished from mere false swearing. 

Edward. But for a kingdom, any oath may be broken. 
RiCHAED. An oath is of no moment, being not took 

Before a true and lawful magistrate 

That hath authority over him that swears. 

The above legal illustration seems to have escaped the observa- 
tion of Lord Campbell. 

YoEK. Five men to twenty ! though the odds be great 

1 doubt not, uncle, of our victory. 

Many a battle have I won in, France ; 

When as the enemy hath been ten to one. Act I. Scene 2. 

Clif. The common people swarm like summer flies. 

And whither fly the gnats but to the sun. Act II. Scene 6. 
Enter King Henkt {disguised as a chiorchman) with a prayer.booh. 
K. Hen. From Scotland am I stol'n, even of pure love. 

To greet mine own land with my wishful sight. 

No, Harry, Harry, 'tis no land of thine ; 

Thy place is fiU'd, thy sceptre wrung from thee. 

Thy balm wash'd off, wherewith thou toast anointed : 

No bending knee will call thee Csesar now, 

No humble suitors press to speak for right, 

No, not a man comes for redress from thee ; 

For how can I help them, and not myself. 

* * * 
K. Hen. I was anointed king at nine months old. 

* * * 
Why, am I dead p do I not breathe a man ? 
Ah, simple men, you know not what you swear. 



256 Shakespeare, from an Ame^dcan Poiitt of View. 

Look, as I blow this featlier from my face, 

And as tlie air blows it to me again. 

Obeying with my wind when I do blow, 

And yielding to another when it blows, 

Commanded always by the greater gust ; 

Such is the lightness oiyou common men. Act III. Scene 1. 

Q. Mae. While proud ambitious Edward, duke of York, 
Usurps the regal title and the seat 
Of England's true anointed lawful king. Act HI. Scene 3. 

Act IV. Scene 6. — Hoom in the Tower. 
King Henry to young Eichmond — 
K. Hen. Come hither, England's hope : If secret powers 

{lays his hand on Ms head. 
Suggest but truth to my divining thoughts. 
This pretty lad will prove our country's bliss. 
His looks are full of peaceful majesty ; 
His head by nature framed to wear a crown. 
His hand to wield a sceptre ; and himself 
Likely, in time, to bless a regal throne. 
Make much of him, my lords ; for this is he 
Must help you more than you are hurt by me. 

K. Edw. Now march we hence ; discharge tJie common sort 

With pay and thanks. Act V. Scene 5. 

Throughout this play, crime is heaped on crime by the nobles 
of all parties, with just the same want of scruple that the 
politicians in America show against one another by false 
votes ; but Shakespeare presides over the shoclijing turpitude of 
his period with seldom a word of censure, and rarely the atone- 
ment of a moral, as if murder, perjury, and perfidy of every stamp, 
were the unquestioned rights of noble birth. It may be said 
he does the world service, by showing these nobles in their true 
colours; but it must be observed that one who is commis- 
sioned with the capacity to write history, should boldly approve 
good deeds and condemn bad ones, in order to be worthy of his 
task. Shakespeare, on the contrary, deals with the villanies of 
kings and nobles as if they were among the ordinary privileges of 
the ruling classes, and as if crime were the inheritance of the 
poor. Even Clarence, who was one of the murderers of Prince 
Edward, at Tewkesbury, is made to enlist our sympathy, by dying 
almost like a martyr and a saint. 



'' King Henry VI r — Part III. 257 

THE LEGAL ACqUIREMENTS OF SHAKESPEAHE AS SHOWN IN THE 
HISTORIES OF THE HENRIES. 

At tlie close of my review of "^ Henry IV./^ Part II., I briefly 
stated, that '' the legalisms exhibited in Shakespeare's behalf, in 
the course of it, by Lord Chief Justice Campbell, did not call for 
any attention at my hands .''■' Upon further reflection, however, it 
seems to me that, inasmuch as I have heretofore printed, almost 
in extenso, all of Lord Campbell's illustrations on this subject, I 
may as well perfect that portion of my task, by giving", even to 
the end, the substance of everything his lordship has to say in 
that regard. For, after all, the question of the respective legal 
acquirements of Bacon and of Shakespeare, runs a line through 
the very centre of the main inquiry, the course of which is 
almost as decisive in demonstrating the debated point of author- 
ship, as the question of the respective religious creeds of the two 
persons named. 

In dealing with the Second Part of " Henry IV.,'' Lord Camp- 
bell says, " Arguments have been drawn from this drama against 
Shakespeare's supposed great legal acquirements. It has been 
objected to the very amusing interview, in Act I. Scene 2, 
between Falstaff and the Lord Chief Justice, that if Shakespeare 
had been much of a lawyer, he would have known that this great 
magistrate could not examine offenders in the manner supposed, 
and could only take notice of offences when they were regularly 
prosecuted before him in the Court of King's Bench, or at the 
assizes. But, although such is the practice in our days, so 
recently as the beginning of the eighteenth century, that 
illustrious Judge, Lord Chief Justice Holt, acted as a police 
magistrate, quelling riots, taking depositions against parties 
accused, and, where a prim^ facie case was made out against 
them, committing them for trial. Lord Chief Justice Coke 
actually assisted in taking the Earl and Countess of Somerset 
into custody when charged with the murder of Sir Thomas 
Overbury, and examined not less than three hundred witnesses 
against them." 

With all due respect to Lord Campbell, I cannot but consider 
that he has made a disingenuous use of these two illustrations. 
The first alludes to a case of quasi rebellion, which required the 
personal energy of the highest magistrate in the kingdom to 



258 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

suppress; and the second was a crime perpetrated by parties so 
closely related to the crown, that it partook largely of the charac- 
ter of a state affair. Both Lords Chief Justices Holt and Coke, 
moreover, decorously exercised their jurisdiction in these cases 
at chambers. I repeat, therefore, that it is at least disingenuous 
on the part of Lord Chief Justice Campbell, to quote these 
instances as fair offsets to the unseemly tavern and chance street 
interviews of Chief Justice Gascoigne with Falstaff, as given in 
the First Part of " Henry IV." Lord Campbell has one or two 
other observations on phrases in the text of " Henry IV.," Part 
II., evincing legal comprehension on the part of Shakespeare, 
but, as his lordship puts them very lightly, and does not press 
them, they hardly require any notice at my hands. 

Lord Campbell finds no evidence of Shakespeare^s legal acquire- 
ments in " Henry V." worthy of his notice ; or in " Henry VI.," 
Part I. ; so he passes on to " Henry VI.," Part II. where he opens 
his proofs of our poet's legal proficiency, by burlesque speeches 
unworthily put into the mouth of Jack Cade and his associates. 
His lordship, however, might have found in the First Part (Act 
11. Scene 5) a similar proof of profound legal erudition as that 
passed over by him in " Henry V." (where the Archbishop of 
Canterbury demonstrates the origin and character of the Salique 
law of France) and might also have found a very lawyer-like 
genealogical recital (by York), in Act 11. Scene 2, of the Second 
Part of " King Henry VI." Now, the fact that of these three 
purely legal performances (showing, as they do, not merely the 
proficiency of an attorney's clerk, but the learning of a 
thoroughly accomplished barrister) are studiously overlooked by 
Lord Chief Justice Campbell, in his evidences of " Shakespeare's 
Legal Acquirements," while relying for his proofs to that 
effect upon the poet's mere mention of such words as '^seal,'" 
" indenture," " enfeoffment," etc., warrant us in the conclusion 
that his lordship had discovered that these digests of title 
and genealogical exploits proved too much for the rest of his 
argument. His lordship, however, overlooking this suggestive 
example (suggestive, in short, that Shakespeare ordered his law, 
when he required any, from other and more competent hands), 
finds a world of point in the comic extravagances which our 
poet has put into the speeches of Jack Cade and his band. 
" In these speeches," says Lord Campbell, " we find a familiarity 



^^ King Henry VI." — Pari III. 259 

with the law and its proceedings, which strongly indicates that 
the author must have had some professional practice or education 
as a lawyer/'' The example which his lordship gives to support 
this opinion is to he found in the second scene of Act IV. and, 
in order to show how small a stock of logic will serve, at times, 
even for a Lord Chief Justice, I here give Lord CampbelPs 
quotation and remarks : — 

Dice. The first thing we do, let 's hill all the laioyers. 

Cade. Nay, that I mean to do. Is not this a lamentahle thing, that the 
skin of an innocent lamb should be made parchment? — that parchment, 
being scribbled o'er, should undo a man ? Some say the bee stings ; but I 
say 'tis the bee's wax, for I did but seal once to a thing, and I was never 
mine own man since. 

" The Clerk of Chatham is then brought in, who could ' make 
obligations and write court hand,' and who, instead of ' making 
his mark like an honest, plain-dealing man,"* had been ' so well 
brought up that he could write his name.'' Therefore he was 
sentenced to be hanged with his pen and ink-horn about his 
neck. 

" Surely " (says Lord Campbell) " Shakespeare must have 
been employed to write deeds on parchment in court hand, and to 
apply the wax to them in the form of seals : one does not under- 
stand how he should, on any other theory of his bringing up, 
Jiave been acquainted with these details. 

" Again " (says his lordship) " the indictment on which Lord 
Say was arraigned, in Act IV. Scene 7, seems drawn by no 
inexperienced hand : — 

" ' Thou hast most traitorously corrupted the youth of the 
realm in erecting a grammar-school : and whereas, before, our 
forefathers had no other books but the score and the tally, thou 
hast caused printing to be used; and contrary to the Icing, his 
crown and dignity, thou hast built a paper-mill. It will be 
proved to thy face that thou hast men about thee that usually 
talk of a noun and a verb, and such ahominable toords as no 
Christian ear can endure to hear. Thou hast appointed justices 
of peace, to call poor men before them about matters they were 
not able to answer. Moreover thou hast put them in prison ; 
and because they could not read, thou hast hanged them, when 
indeed only for that cause they have been most worthy to live.' 

" How acquired I know not, but it is quite certain " (declares 



26o Shakespeare^ from aii American Point of View. 

Lord Campbell) " that the drawer of this indictment must have 
had some acquaintance with ' The Crown Circuit Companion/ 
and must have had a full and accurate knowledge of that rather 
obscure and intricate subject — ' Felony and Benefit of Clerg-y.-' 

'^ Cade's proclamation, which follows, deals with still more 
recondite heads of jurisprudence. Announcing his policy when 
he should mount the throne, he says, ' The proudest peer in 
the realm shall not wear a head on his shoulders unless he pay me 
tribute : there shall not a maid be married but she shall . - . 
Men shall hold of me in capite ; and we charge and command 
that their wives be ^ksfree as heart can wish, or tongue can tell.' 

" He thus declares a great forthcoming change in the tenure 
of land and in the liability of taxation : he is to have a pole-tax 
like that which had raised the rebellion ; but, instead of coming 
down to the daughters of blacksmiths who had reached the age 
of fifteen, it was to be confined to the nobility. Then he is to 
legislate on the mercheta muUerum. 

^ '3p ^ 7r ^ TPf ^ 

" He proceeds to announce his intention to abolish tenure in 
free socage, and that all men should hold of him, in capite, con- 
cluding with a licentious jest that, although his subjects should 
no longer hold in free socage, ' their wives should be as free as 
heart can wish, or tongue can tell/ Strange to say •'' (continues 
his lordship) ^^this phrase, or one almost identically the same, 
' as free as tongue can speak, or heart can think,' is feudal, and 
was known to the ancient law of England/' 

Now, in relation to this latter instance as presented by his 
lordship, the suggestion which irresistibly presents itself is, 
that Shakespeare, if he really had been bred to the law, would 
have presented the legal phrase above correctly. Bacon certainly 
would have done so ; unless w^e are to believe it was purposely 
perverted for a comic object. 



EICHARD III. 



The date of the production of this stirring drama is set down 
by Eurnival as in 1594, and its publication in 1597. The 
authorities used in its construction were "The History of 
Richard III.," by Sir Thomas More, and its continuation by 



'' Richard hi:' 261 

Holinshed. The character of Eichard is the most bustling and 
vigorous of any in the Shakespearian dramas ; and so masterly 
is the sketch of the hero_, that^ notwithstanding his enormous 
crimes, he ingratiates himself with every audience by his pro- 
digious intellect and marvellous courage. In evidence of the 
natural obstacles which stood in the way of his violent acquisi- 
tion of the throne,, I quote the following portrait of him by Sir 
Thomas More^ in the work referred to : — 

" Eichard, the third son (of Eichard, duke of York), was, in 
wit and courage, equal with either of them — his brothers 
Edward the Fourth, and George, duke of Clarence. In body 
and prowess he was far under them both ; little of stature, ill- 
featured of limbs, crook-backed, his left shoulder much higher 
than his right, hard-favoured of visage, and such as is in states 
called warlie, in other men otherwise ; he was malicious, wrath- 
ful, envious, and from afore his birth ever froward. It is for 
truth reported, that the duchess, his mother, had so much ado in 
her travail. . . . None evil captain was he in the way of M^ar, as 
to which his disposition was more metely than for peace. 
Sundry victories had he, and sometime overthi'ows, but never in 
default as for his own person of hardiness or politic order. . . . 
He was close and secret, a deep dissembler, lowly of countenance, 
arrogant of heart, outwardly companionable where he inwardly 
hated, not letting to kiss whom he thought to kill : dispiteous 
and cruel, not for evil will alvvay, but often for ambition, and 
either for the surety or increase of his estate. Friend and foe was 
much what indifferent ; where his advantage grew, he spared no 
man^s death, whose life withstood his purpose.^^ 

Shakespeare has followed the chronicle with great minuteness, 
which shows how faithfully he can adhere to the truth when so 
disposed. On the night before the battle of Bosworth Field, 
says the old historian : — 

" The fame went that he had a dreadful and terrible dream ; 
for it seemed to him, being asleep, that he did see divers images 
like terrible devils, which pulled and haled • him, not suffering 
him to take any quiet or rest. The which strange vision not' so 
suddenly strake his heart with a sudden fear, but it stuffed his 
head and troubled his mind with many busy and dreadful 
imaginations. , . . And less that it might be suspected that he 
was abashed for fear of his enemies, and for that cause looked so 
18 



262 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

piteouslj, he recited and declared to his familiar friends in the 

morningj his wonderful vision and fearful dream When 

the loss of the battle was imminent and apparent, they brought 
to him a swift and a light horse, to convey him away ; but dis- 
daining flight, and inflamed with ire, and vexed with outrageous 
malice, he put his spurs to his horse, and rode out of the side of 
the range of his battle, leaving the vanguard fighting, and, like 
a hungry lion, ran with spear in rest towards him. The earl of 
Richmond perceived well the king coming furiously toward him, 
and because the whole hope of his wealth and purpose was to be 
determined by battle, he gladly profiered to encounter with him, 
body to body, and man to man. King Eichard set on so 
sharply at the first brunt, that he overthrew the earFs standard, 
and slew Sir William Brandon, his standard-bearer; and matched 
hand to hand with Sir John Cheinie, a man of great force and 
strength, which would have resisted him, but the said John was 
by him manfully overthrown. And so, he making open passage 
by dint of sword as he went forward, the earl of Richmond 
withstood his violence, and kept him at the sword^s point,, 
without advantage, longer than his companions either thought 
or judged, which being almost in despair of victory, were 
suddenly re-comforted by Sir William Stanley, which came to 
succours with three thousand tall men, at which very instant 
King Richard^'s men were driven back, and fled, and he himself, 
manfully fighting in the middle of his enemies, was slain, and 
brought to his death as he worthily had deserved.''^ 

Dowden, in treating of the character of this drama, says, 
" The demoniac intensity which distinguishes the play pro- 
ceeds from the character of Richard, as from its source and 
centre. . . . Richard rathers occupies the imagination by 
audacity and force than insinuates himself through some sub- 
tle solvent, some magic and mystery of art. His character 
does not grow upon us ; from the first it is complete. . . . Cole- 
ridge has said of Richard, that pride of intellect is his cha- 
racteristic. This is true ; but his dominant characteristic is not 
intellectual — it is rather a demoniac energy of will. The same 
cause which produces tempest and shipwreck produces Richard ; 
he is a fierce elemental power raging through the world.''^* 

' Dowden's " Shakespeare's Mind and Art," p. 182. 



" Richard III!' 263 

As it is no part of my task to proceed any farther upon tins 
line of observation, I will therefore direct myself, at once, to 
such portions of the text as illustrate those tendencies of the 
poet's mind which we have made the subject of our particular 
analysis. 

At the opening of the second act, while Edward is still king-, 
though grievously sick. Lord Stanley comes hastily before him, 
and implores pardon for one of his servants, who had slain " a 
riotous nobleman.-" Edward, however, is suffering under re- 
morse for having ordered Clarence-'s death, and rebukes the 
impetuous suitor by reminding him that no one attempted to 
intercept his purpose wdien he had hastily sentenced his poor 
brother : — 

Have I a tongue to doom my brother's death ? 

And shall that tongue give pardon to a slave ? 

* * Not a man of you 

Had so much grace to put it in my mind. 

But, when your carters, or your icaiting vassals. 

Have done a drunken slaughter and defaced 

The precious image of our dear Redeemer. 

You straight are on your knees for pardon, pardon ! 

In Act III. Scene 2 we find the following Catholic symptoms 
in our poet : — 
Buck. What, talking with a priest, lord chamberlain? 

Your friends at Pomfret, they do need the priest; 
Your honour hath no shriving work in hand. 
Hastings. Good faith, and when I met this holy man. 
The men you talk o£ came into my mind. 

Buck. Now, hy the holy Mother of our Lord 1 — 

Enter, from the castle, Catesbt. 
Now, Catesby ! what says your lord to my request ? 
Gate. He doth entreat your grace, my noble lord, 

To visit him to-morrow, or next day : 
He is within, loith tivo right reverend fathers, 
Divinely bent to meditation : 
And in no worldly suit would he be moved. 
To draw him from his holy exercise. 

Act III. Scene 7. 

The following thus describes the ruthless murder of the two 
young princes in the Tower : — 
Tykeel. Dighton and Forrest, whom I did suborn 



264 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View* 

To do this piece of ruthless butcliery, 

Albeit they were flesli'd villains, bloody dogs, 

Melting with tenderness and mild compassion, 

Wept like two children, in their death's sad story. 

O thus, quoth Dighton, lay the gentle babes, — 

Thus, thus, quoth Forrest, girdling one another 

Within their alabaster innocent arms : 

Their lips were four red roses on a stalk. 

Which, in their summer beauty, kiss'd each other. 

A hooh of prayers on their pillow lay : 

Which once, quoth Forrest, almost changed my mind. 

This assassination being brought to the knowledge of Queen 
Elizabeth, the mother of these murdered innocents^she exclaims, — 

Ah, my poor princes ! ah, my tender babes ! 
My unblown flowers, new-appearing sweets ! 
If yet your gentle souls fly in the air. 
And he not fix d in doom perpetual, 
Hover about me imth your airy tuings, 
And hear your mother's lamentation ! 
Q. Mae. Hover about her ; say, that right for right 

Hath dimm'd your infant morn to aged night. 

This instance, which was given in an earlier chapter, shows 
Shakespeare's recognition of the doctrine of purgatory. 

Again, this Catholic doctrine is expressed by Buckingham 
(when on the way to execution) in remorseful invocation to the 
souls of those whom he had helped Richard murder : — 

Hastings and Edward's children. Elvers, Grey, 
Holy king Henry, and thy fair son Edward, 
Vaughan, and all that have miscarried 
By underhand corrupted foul injustice : 
If that your moody discontented souls 
Do through the clouds behold this present hour, 
Even for revenge moch my destruction 1 
# * * 

Come, lead me, officers, to the block of shame ; 
Wrong hath but wrong, and blame the due of blame. 
Act IV. Scene 4. 
K. ElCH. A flourish, trumpets ! — strike alarum, drums ! 
Let not the heavens hear these tell-tale women 
Kail on the Lord's anointed I Strike, I say ! 

W w W 

Act V. Scene 2. 
Enter Richmond and Forces. 
ElCH. Then in God's name march : 



'' Richard III y^ 265 

True hope is swift, and flies with swallow's wings. 
Kings it makes gods, and meaner creatures Icings ! 

Tent Scene. — MicJiard's Dream. 
The Ghost ofKiNG Henet the Sixth rises. 
Ghost. When I was mortal, my anointed body 

Bj thee was punched full of deadly holes. 

Scene III. — Bostoorth Field. 
K. EiCH. Wh}"-, our battalia trebles that account : 

Besides, the Icing's name is a toiver of strength. 
Which they upon the adverse faction want. 

^ ■TV" W 

These famish'd heggars, weary of their lives ; 

Who, but for dreaming on this fond exploit, 

For want of means, poor rats, had hang'd themselves. 

Eemember whom you are to cope withal ; 

A sort of vagabonds, rascals and runaways, 

A scum of Bretagnes, and hase lacTcey feasants. 

I return now to the first act_, Scene 2^ for a final illustration 
from this play. The Lady Anne^ attended by mourners and a 
guard, is accompanying the body of King Henry VI. to Chertsey 
monastery, for interment : — 

Enter Glostee. 

Glo. Stay you, that bear the corse, and set it down. 

Anne. What black magician conjures up this fiend. 

To stop devoted charitable deeds ? 

Glo. Villains, set down the corse ; or, by Saint Paul, 

I'U make a corse of him that disobeys. 

1 Gent. My lord, stand back, and let the coffin pass. 

\lle lowers his spear at Glostee's Ireast. 

Glo. Unmanner'd dog ! stand thou when I command : 

Advance thy halberd higher than my breast, 
Or, by Saint Paul, I'll strike thee to my foot, 
And spurn upon thee, leggar, for thy boldness. 

Such is the worship paid to wealth in England, down even to 
the present day, that the most current expression of contempt is 
to brand a man with the epithet of beggar ! as used in the sense 
of poverty, — " Get out, you beggar ! " 

The stock-in-trade of this play consists of murders, conspiracies 
and perjuries, and amid this sickening sea of crime the female 
characters figure to such singular disadvantage, as to give 



266 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

another to the many proofs that Shakespeare did not have a 
very high estimate of women. 

The play which follows " Richard III/'' and closes the Shake- 
spearian dramatic histories, is that of '^ Henry VIII./' which 
leaves the reign of Richmond, or Henry VII., unrepresented in the 
series. The Baconians seek to make a great point of this hiatus, 
by producing the fact that Bacon wrote a special prose history of 
the reign of Henry VII., over his own signature, and that, 
having thus met all the historical necessities of the subject in 
prose, his tired muse did not feel called upon to repeat the task, 
under the disadvantages of dramatic poetry. It strikes me, 
however, that it is much more reasonable to attribute Shake- 
speare's neglect of Henry VII. for the purposes of a play to the 
utter absence of any dramatic incident in a reign which was de- 
voted only to mere social progress and "the establishment of 
law and order/^ 



^' King Henry VIII'' 267 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

"king henry VIII." 

The greatest of all the controversies wliich have raged among 
the eommentatorSj both German and English, upon the life, 
genius, and writings of William Shakespeare, is that concerning 
the date of our poet^s production of the play of " Henry VIII." 
And the object of the dispute is by no means unworthy of the 
consequence which has been given to it, for its date defines, to a 
great extent, the motives which induced Shakespeare to prostitute 
his pen to the laudation of a monster, whose very name it is the 
common duty of mankind to execrate. Moreover, the play, as 
it stands, bears sharply upon the question of Shakespeare's 
religious faith, and, particularly in that expression in Cranmer^s 
christening speech (upon which Knight so much relies), when 
the Archbishop predicts that during the reign of Elizabeth — 
which was a Protestant reign — 

God shall be truly known. 

Be it observed at this point, however, that the whole of this 
speech of Cranmer's is generally regarded as spurious by the 
English commentators, and is attributed by most of them to 
Ben Jonson, who is supposed to have written it in, subsequent 
to its production, as a compliment to King James, who ascended 
the throne at the death of Elizabeth, in March, 1603.^ Among 

^ Doctor Eeichensperger, clerical member of the German Parliament, bas 
recently issued a work, in wbicb be says tbat " Cranmer's prediction of tbe 
glories of Elizabeth's reign, at tbe end of ' King Henry VIII.' is an inter- 
polation of tbe low court parasite, Ben Jonson." 

Tbe April number of the Catholic Progress, published in London, con- 
tains a paper by " J. B. M.," which says, in referring to " Henry VIII.," 
" Clap-trap passages about tbe ' virgin queen,' for instance, may possibly not 
be Shakespeare's own writing. If they are, they are of course drawbacks. 



268 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

those who deny the authenticity of Cranmer^s speech^ and who 
believe that the play was' written by Shakespeare as early as 
1602, are Doctor Johnson, Theobald, Steevens, Malone, Collier, 
and Halliwell, with only Knig-ht and Hunter, among the 
English critics, to the contrary. " All of the German com- 
mentators, however,^^ says Elze, '' with the exception of Schlegel 
and Kreyssig, are in favour of the year 1612/^ Speddon says, 
that Shakespeare planned " Henry VIII.,^-' " but wrote less than 
half of it (1116 Hnes), Fletcher writing the rest (1761 lines)/' ' 
The argument for the production of " Henry VIII/'' in 1612, 
has its main support in two private letters (written, one on 
June 30, and the other on July 6, 1613, by a ]\lr. Thomas 
Lorkin and Sir Henry Wotton respectively), describing the 
burning of the Globe Theatre, of London, on the 29th June 
previous. During the performance of '^King Henry YIIL," 
says Lorkin, the house was set on fire by the discharge of 
chambers (small cannon) on the entrance of the king to TTolsey's 
palace — the wadding of the said chambers having lodged in the 
thatch of the roof. Sir Henry "U'otton's letter, in alluding to 
the same incident, speaks of the pjiece which was being per- 
formed at the time of the fire as a new play, called '^ All is True, 
representing some principal pieces of the reign of Henry the 
Eighth.'"' Now, it is very easy to conceive that Sir Henry 
Wotton might have thought the piece a nev) one without being 
correct; or that he may never before have been at a theatre, 
and consequently knew but little of such matters ; but it is not 
easy to conceive that Shakespeare should have so closely inter- 
woven his psean to the infant Elizabeth with the panegyric on 
King James, when it was generally known (and by no one 
better than by Shakespeare) that James had by no means a 
good opinion of his predecessor.^ 

This, to my mind, indicates the Cranmer christening speech 

No real Catholic would flatter a monster whose savage cruelties were endea- 
vouring to eradicate from her subjects the Catholic faith." To this, I may 
add, that Henry burnt Protestants as well as Catholics when he took the 
notion. — G. W. 

2 Gervinius, p. xx of " Introduction." 

^ It is worthy of notice that among the many tributes to the virtues of 
Queen Elizabeth which immediately foUowed her death, none came from 
Shakespeare. This neglect appeared so singular, that Chettle publicly 
rebuked him for it in the lines, — 



*^ King Henry VIII ^ 269 

to be an interpolation on the text of Shakespeare, and also 
favours the idea that Shakesj)eare wrote the plav in 1602, to 
please the Queen, and to soften the character of Henry VIII., 
because he was her father. 

With these preliminary observations I will pass to the illus- 
trations of the play. The first that arrests our attention is the 
one in which Buckingham (after having been condemned in a 
most unfair trial by notoriously prejudiced judges and by 
testimony so ob^^iously false that it attracted the attention of 
Queen Katharine and elicited her womanly protest) is made by 
Shakespeare to acquit and bless the royal brute who would 
neither hearken to justice nor to her : — 

Act II. Scene 1. 
For ftirther life in this world I ne'er hope, 
!N"or will I sue, altliougTi the hing have mercies 
More than I dare maJce faults. 

* * * 

Commend me to his grace ; 
And if he speak of Buckingham, pray tell him. 
Ton met him half in heaven; my voics and _prai,'ers 
Yet are the l-^htff's ; and till my soulforsal-e. 
Shall cry for blessings an him ; may he live 
JLonger than J have time to tell his years ! 
^ver beloved and loving, may his rule be! 
And, icJien old Time shall lead him to his end, 

GOODXESS iJN'D HE FILL TP 0^'E MOXUilEXT ! 

* * * 

I had my trial. 
And, must needs say, a noble one;^ which makes me 
A little happier than Ay wretched father : 
Yet thus far we are one in fortunes. — Both 

Nor doth the sil^^er-tongued Melicert 

Drop from his houied muse one s;^ble tear, 

To moui-n her death that graced his desert, 

And to his laies open'd her royal eare. 

Shepherd, remember our Elizabeth, 

And sing her rape done by that Tai-quin, Death. 

" Mourning Garment," p. 160. Z. Holmes, p. 41. 
^ The character of the witnesses in this " noble ti-ial " was thus prefigm-ed 
by the conscientioiis Queen Katharine to the conscienceless and bloody boar. 
King Henry : — 

Act I. Scene 2. 
Q. Kath. I am soriy that the Duke of Buckingham 
Is run in your displeasure. 



2 70 Shakespeare^ from an American Point of View, 

Tell by our servants, by those men we loved most ; 
A most unnatural and faithless service ! 

At this point one of the Duke of Buckingham's retainers, a 
surveyor, testifies against him, but with such evident prejudice 
and malice that the Queen again interposes : — 

Enter a Surveyor. 
Q. Kath. If I know you well, 

You were the Duke's surveyor, and lost your ofiBce 

On the complaint o' the tenants. Take good heed 

You charge not in your spleen, a noble person. 

And spoil your nobler soul ! I say, take heed ! 
Act II. Scene 2. 
Suffolk. How is the King employ'd ? 
Cham. I left him private, 

TuU of sad thoughts and troubles. 
NoEFOiK. What's the cause? 

Cham. It seems the marriage with his brother's wife 

Has crept not near his conscience. 
Suffolk. No, his conscience 

Has crept too near another lady. 
Noefolk. 'Tis so : 

This is the cardinal's doing, the king-cardinal : 

That blind priest, like the eldest son of fortune, 

Turns what he lists. The king will know him one day. 
NoBFOLK opens a folding-door. The King- is discovered sitting, and 
reading pensively. 
Suffolk. How sad he looks ! sure he is much afflicted. 
K Hen. Who is there? ha? 

NoEFOLK. 'Pray God, he be not angry. 

K. Hen. Who's there, I say ? How dare you thrust yourselves 

Into my private meditations ? 

Who am I ? ha ! 
NoEFOLK. A gracious Icing, that pardons all offences 

Malice ne'er meant : our breach of duty, this way 

Is business of estate ; in which, we come 

To know your royal pleasui-e. 
K. Hen. You are too bold. 

Go to ; I'll make ye know your times of business : 

Is this an hour for temporal affairs ? ha ? — 

K. Hen. It grieves many. 

WoLSET. To your high person 

His will is most malignant. 
Q. Kath. My learned Lord Cardinal, 

Deliver all with charity. 



'' King Henry VIII ^ 271 

Act II. Scene 2. 
Caediital Campeius {to King Heney). 
Your grace must needs deserve all strangers' loves. 
You are so nohle. 
Act II. Scene 3.— An Antechamher in tJie Queens Apartments. 
Present— Anne Bullen, Xa<% in Waiting, and an old Lady of the Court. 
Enter Loed Chambeelain. 
LoBD C. {observing Anne Bullen, the mother of the future infant 
Elizabeth, and speaking aside). 

I have perused her well ; 
Beauty and honour in her are so mingled, 
That they have caught the king ; and who knows yet 
But from this lady may proceed a gem 
To lighten all this isle ! 
Act II. Scene L—The Trial of Queen Katharine. 
Q. Kath. (to "VVolset). Again 

I do refuse you for my judge ; and here, 
Before you all, appeal unto the pope. 
To bring my whole cause 'fore his holiness, 
And to be judged by him. 

[^She curtsies to the King, and offers to depart. 
Q^j£^ The queen is obstinate, 

Stubborn to justice, apt to accuse it, and 
Disdainful to be try'd by it ; 'tis not well. 
She's going away. 
K. Hen. Call her again. 

Ceiee. Katharine, Queen of England, come into the court. 
Geif. Madame, you are caU'd back. 
Q. Kath. "What need you note it ? pray you, keep your way : 
When you are call'd, return. — ^Now the Lord help ! 
They vex me past my patience ! — pray you, pass on : 
I wiU not tarry : no, nor ever more. 
Upon this business, my appearance make 
In any of their courts. 

\_Exeunt Queen, Geiffith, and Attendants. 

K. Hen. Gro thy ways, Kate : 

The man i' the world who shall report he has 
A better wife, let him in naught be trusted, 
For speaking false in that thou art, alone 
(If thy rare qualities, sweet gentleness, 
Thy meekness saint-like, wife-like government, 
Obeying in commanding — and thy parts 
Sovereign and pious else, could speak thee out). 
The queen of earthly queens : she is noble born : 
And like her true nobility, she has 
Carried herself toward me. 



272 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

Act III. Scene 1 presents two remarkable expressions from 
the devoutly Catholic Queen Katharine^ which dispose, entirely, 
by a parity of reasoning", of all of Knig-ht^s Protestant pre- 
sumptions on the lines in '' King* John :" — 

The king has been poisoned hy a monh, 
A most resolved villain. 

The Queen and her women are at needlework, when a mes- 
senger enters and informs her that Cardinals Wolsey and 
Campeius desire an audience : — 

Q. Kath. Pray their graces 

To come near. What can be their business 
With me, a poor, weak woman, fallen from favour? 
I do not like their coming. Now, I think on it, 
They should be good men : their affairs as righteous : 
^xd all hoods maJce not monies. 

And, again, in the interview which follows, she says to 
Wolsey : — 

Q. Kath. Ye turn me into nothing : Woe upon ye. 

And all such false professors ! Would ye bave me 

(If you bave any justice, any pity ; 

If ye he anything hut churchmen s habits) 

Put my sick cause into his bands that hate me ? 

In the next scene Wolsey thus reflects upon the threatening 
complications which the advent of the beautiful Anne Bullen 
makes for him, in his profligate master's mind : — 

- Wolsey. Anne Bullen ! No ; I'll no Anne BuUens for him. 
There is more in it than fair visage. Bullen ! 
No, we'll no Bullens. 

* * * 

The late queen's gentlewoman : a knight's daughter, 
To be ber misti-ess' mistress ! the queen's queen ! 
This candle burns not clear ; 'tis I must snuff it ; 
Then, out it goes. What though I know ber virtuous, 
And well deserving ? yet Ihnow her for 
A spleeny Lutheran ; and not wholesome to 
Our cause, that she should lie i' the bosom of 
Our bard-ruled king. Again, there is sprung up 
An heretic, an arch one, Cranmer ; one 
Hatb crawl'd into the favour of the king, 
And is bis oracle. 

The close of this scene describes Wolsey^s fall : — 



'' King Henry VIIIT 273 

WoLSEY. I kuovv myself now : and I feel within me 

A peace above all earthly dignities, 

A still and quiet conscience. The hing has cured me, 

I humbly thank his grace ; and from these shoulders, 

These ruin'd pillars, out of pity, taken 

A load -would sink a navy, too much honour ; 

O, 'tis a burden, Cromwell, 'tis a burden, 

Too heavy for a man that hopes for heaven. 
Ceom. I am glad, your grace has made that right use of it. 
WoL. I hope, I have : I am able now, methinks 

(Out of a fortitude of soul I feel), 

To endure more miseries, and greater far, 

Than my weak-hearted enemies dare offer*. 

"What news abroad .P 
Ceom. The heaviest and the worst 

Is your displeasure with the king. 
WoL. Grod bless him ! 

* * * 
Go, get thee from me, Cromwell ; 

I am a poor fallen man, unworthy now 

To be thy lord and master : Seek the Icing ; 

That sun, I pray, may never set ! I have told him 

What, and how true thou art : he will advance thee ; 

Some little memory of me will stir him, 

{I knoto his noble nature.) 

Act IV. Scene 2. 
The Scene of Queen ICathaeine's death. 
Q. Eath. In which I have commended to his goodness 

The model of our chaste loves, his yotmg daughter : ^ — 

The deivs of heaven fall thick in blessings on her ! 

Beseeching him to give her virtuous breeding; 

She is young, and of a noble modest nature, 

I hope, she iuill deserve well ; and a little 

To love her for her mothers sake, that loved him, 

Seaven knows how dearly. 

* * * 
When I am dead, good wench, 

Let me be used with honour ; strew me over 
With maiden flowers, that all the world may know 
I was a chaste wife to my grave ; embalm me. 
Then lay me forth : although unqueen'd, yet like 
A queen, and daughter of a king, inter me ! 
Act V. Scene 4. 
Ceanmee's christening speech for the infant Elizabeth. 
Gaet. Heaven, 



5 Mary I., sometimes called " Bloody Mary." 



2 74 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

From thy endless goodness, send prosperous life, 

Long, and ever happy, to the high and mighty 

Princess of England, Elizabeth ! 

Flourish. Enter King and train. 
Cean. And to your royal grace, and the good queen, \Kneeling. 

My noble partners, and myself, thus pray : — 

All comfort, joy, in this most gracious lady. 

Heaven ever laid up to make parents happy. 

May hourly fall upon j'e ! 
K. Hen. Thank you, good lord archbishop. 

What is her name ? 
Cean. Elizabeth. 

K. Hek. Stand up, lord. [ Cranmer rises. 

With this kiss take my blessing : God protect thee ! 

Into whose hand I give thy life. {^Kissing the child. 

Cean. Amen ! 

K.Hen. My noble gossips, ye have been too prodigal, 

I thank ye heartily : so shall this lady. 

When she has so much English. 
Ceak. Let me speak, sii', 

For Heaven now bids me ; and the words I utter 

Let none think flattery, for they'll find them truth. 

This royal infant, — Heaven still move about her ! — 

Though in her cradle, yet now promises 

Upon this land a thousand thousand blessings. 

Which time shall bring to ripeness. She shall be 

(But few now living can behold that goodness) 

A pattern to all princes living with her, 

And all that shall succeed : Sheba was never 

More covetous of wisdom, and fair virtue. 

Than this pure soul shall be : all princely graces. 

That mould up such a mighty piece as this is, 

With all the virtues that attend the good, 

Shall still be doubled on her : truth shall nurse her ; 

Holy and heavenly thoughts still counsel her : 

She shall be loved and fear'd : her own shall bless her : 

Her foes shake like a field of beaten corn. 

And hang their heads with sorrow : good grows with her. 

In her days every man shall eat in safety 

Under his own vine what he plants, and sing 

The merry songs of peace to all his neighbours. 

God shall he truly Tcnoion ; and those about her 

From her shall read the perfect ways of honour. 

And by those claim their greatness, not by blood. 

Nor shall this peace sleep with her : but as when 

The bird of wonder dies, the maiden phoenix, 

Her ashes new create another heir, 



'' King Henry VIII ^ 275 

As great in admiration as herself; 

So shall she leave her blessedness to one [King James] 

(When Heaven shall call her from this cloud of darkness) 

Who, from the sacred ashes of her honour, 

Shall, star-like, rise, as great in fame as she was. 

And so stand fix'd. Peace, plenty, love, truth, terror, 

That were the servants to this chosen infant, 

Shall then be his, and like a vine grow to him : 

Wherever the bright sun of Heaven shall shine, 

His honour and the greatness of his name 

Shall be, and make new nations : he shall flourish, 

And, like a mountain cedar, reach his branches 

To all the plains about him. Our children's children 

Shall see this, and bless Heaven. 

K. Hen. Thou speakest wonders. 

Cean. She shall be, to the happiness of England, 
An aged princess : many days shall see her, 
And yet no day without a deed to crown it. 
Would I had known no more \ but she must die : 
She must; the saints must have her : yet a virgin, 
A most unspotted lily shall she pass 
To the ground, and all the world shall mourn her. 

K. Heu-. 0, lord archbishop ! 

Thou hast made me now a man : never, before 

This happy child, did I get anything. 

This oracle of comfort has so pleased me, 

That when I am in heaven 1 shall desire 

To see what this child does, and praise my Maker. 

I thank ye all. To you, my good lord mayor. 

And you, good brethren, I am much beholding : 

I have received much honour by your presence. 

And ye shall find me thankful. Lead the way, lords : 

Ye must all see the queen, and she must thank ye ; 

She will be sick else. This day, no man think 

He has business at his house, for all shall stay : 

This little one shall make it holiday. \JExeunt. 

It is painful to witness such a perversity of genius, to the 
injmy of truth and morals, as is here exhibited against Shake- 
speare, in the almost lovable portraiture which he has attempted 
to foist upon his countrymen as '' Bluff King Hal." Neither the 
histojy of England, nor that of any other country, furnishes for 
the loathing of mankind a more cruel and unbounded tyrant 
than this same Henry YIII. — this very proper father of Elizabeth, 
who, in many of its worst points, emulated her sire's career. 
The leading characteristics of this monster in human form are a 



276 Shakespeare, from an Ameidca7i Point of View. 

constant bloodthirstiness and unbridled sensuality. The life of 
no man who offended him, or thwarted his smallest purposes, 
stood for a moment in his way, and the chastity of every woman 
was at the mercy of his mere caprice. He indulged his rage 
for murder by indiscriminate burnings of both Catholics and 
Protestants ; while his sensuality is conspicuously shown by his 
possession of six wives, two of whom he disposed of on the block. 
Nevertheless, he affected conscientiousness as to the validity of 
the marriage he had contracted with Katharine of Arragon, 
because she had been his brother-'s widow ! But he betrayed 
the false motive which pushed forward that divorce by marry- 
ing Anne Boleyn, with whose sister, Mary Boleyn, he had 
long lived in adultery. Indeed, the only reason why he gave 
Queen Katharine even the show of a trial, was because she was 
the daughter of an emperor, and he wished to avoid a war with 
Spain. In the sense of congruity, it is surely eminently proper 
that this monster, for whom Shakespeare fondly bespeaks a 
monument where he might " lie embalmed with goodness for all 
time,^^ should have reintroduced the obsolete method of punishing 
religious offenders by boiling them in oil. In one batch tliis 
bluff King Hal sent fourteen Anabaptists to be burnt in 
Smithfield; he afterwards hanged six monks at Tyburn, and 
executed his more distinguished victims, like the venerable Bishop 
Fisher and Sir Thomas More, by the axe on Tower Hill. 

Elizabeth imitated the bloodthirstiness of Henry, and showed 
it in the beheading of Mary Queen of Scots at the instance of 
Sir Francis Bacon; she also closely followed Henry's conjugal 
policy by condemning her discarded favourite, Essex, to exe- 
cution. She was too old, probably (though of that we are not 
certain), to care to supply his place on the following day — 
according to the example of her illustrious father in his mar- 
riao-e with Jane Seymour, which took place the very morning 
after the beautiful Anne Boleyn had been beheaded by his orders. 

It is noticeable in this play, that Shakespeare speaks tenderly, 
and with prophetic kindness, of the infant princess, who after- 
wards became " Bloody Mary ;'^ and also noticeable that Queen 
Katharine, whose leading characteristic is Catholic bigotry, re- 
ceives more reverential homage from his pen than any other 
female in his works. Perhaps it was Henry's own unswerving 
devotion to the Catholic faith, in which he devoutly died (despite 



''King Henry VIII r 277 

his battle with the Pope and plunder of the monasteries) ^ which 
secured for him the unfaltering devotion of our poet. Indeed^ it 
is not unlikely that the Bard of Avon, whose predilections for 
royalty we have so often noticed, might have derived much of 
his admiration for the character of Henry VIII. as a ruler, from 
knowing that he subverted all the guarantees of the constitu- 
tion, practically abolished the parliaments by suspending them for 
seven or eight years at a time, and established arbitrary govern- 
ment by "running'^ the State, solely according to his own 
despotic will. 

We may find a further reason for Shakespeare's tenderness 
towards Henry VIII., notwithstanding that despot's suppression 
and plunder of the monasteries, in the fact that he distributed a 
large portion of the spoils of those institutions, in the way of 
lands, among his favourite nobles. Probably broad acres of them 
were inherited by Shakespeare's especial patrons, Essex and 
Southampton. This fact could hardly have influenced the mind 
of Bacon, had he been the author of the Shakespeare plays ; nor 
would the Protestant Lord Chancellor have passed so tenderly 
and so respectfully over the characters of Bloody Mary and the 
bigot Katharine of Arragon, had his been the pen which traced 
the drama. He certainly^ would not have pardoned Henry the 
burning of the fourteen Anabaptists, and the boiling of many 
full-fledged Protestants in oil. The most that the minister, who 
persuaded Elizabeth to execute the Catholic Mary Queen of 
Scotts, could have done in this connexion, would have been to 
have preserved a decorous silence upon these points, in deference 
to his royal mistress. He certainly would not have aUuded to 
the wild boar, her father, whose tusks were always drippino- 
with the blood of martyred innocents, in the beautiful invoca- 
tion, — 

Ever beloved and loving may his rule be ; 
And when old Time shall lead him to his end, 
Goodness and he fill up one monximent. 

19 



278 S/mkespeare, from an American Point of View. 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

THE TRAGEDIES. " TROILUS AND CEESSIDA/' 

The chief interest of " Troilus and Cressida/^ as far as otir in- 
quiry is concerned, turns, like the play of " King Henry VIII./'' 
mainly on the date of its production by the author. 

And this, because tke disciples of the theory that Sir Francis 
Bacon was the author of the Shakespearian dramas find, in the 
play before us (which, tbey say was produced in 1609), an 
erroneous quotation from Aristotle, which had pre\dously ap- 
peared, in an incorrect form, in Bacon^s '^Advancement of 
Learning-,'^ printed in 1605. 

The phrase alluded to occurs in Act II. Scene 2, where Hector 
replies to the objections urged by Paris and Troilus against 
returning the captive Helen to the Gfeeks : — 

Hectoe. Paris and Troilus, you have botli said well ; 
And on the cause and question now in hand 
Have glozed, but superficially ; not much 
UnliJce young men, whom Aristotle thought 
Unfit to hear moeal philosophy. 

" In the ' Advancement of Learning,' " says Judge Holmes 
(the great chief of the Baconian theorists), "Bacon quotes 
Aristotle as saying that young men are no jit auditors of moral 
philosophy'' because " they are not settled from the boiling heat 
of their affections, nor attempered with time and experience.^^ 

Now, inasmuch as Aristotle, in the expression thus attributed 
to him, speaks oi political philosophy instead of moral philosophy, 
and as this error is repeated in the Shakespearian play, published 
four years afterwards. Judge Holmes thinks the circumstance 
indicates that Lord Bacon wrote both that work and the play. 
He admits "that an older play of this name ('Troilus and 
Cressrida '), perhaps an earlier sketch of this very one, had been 



" Troilus and Cresszda." 2 79 

entered upon tlie 'Stationers^ Register^ in 1603-3, but never 
printed " ^ and then volunteers the remark that " there is much 
reason to believe that it (the earlier sketch) was by another 
author altogether/' We cannot but regret that the judge, 
having gone to this extremity, did not give us a reason for 
his opinion. 

I do not accept Judge Holmes' dates, nor do I agree with his 
deductions. The weight of authority among the commentators 
is, that the earlier piece of 1602-3 was Shakespeare's own ; and 
that the edition of 1609 was a revised and perfected version of 
the same ; or, to use the phrase of that day, a copy that had 
been " toucht up." Nevertheless the judgment of the two Shake- 
spearian societies of Germany and England are widely at variance 
upon this point of date; though it must be remarked that 
their disagreement does not comprehend the discussion of the 
Baconian theory. 

The '' Trial Table " of Mr. Furnival (as to the date of the 
plays), published under the auspices of the New Shakespeare 
Society of London, sets the supposed date of the production by 
Shakespeare of "Troilus and Cressida," at 1606-7, and places 
the year of its publication at 1609. On the other hand. Pro- 
fessor Hertzberg, a man of great erudition, writing under the 
auspices of the German Shakespeare Society, puts the date of 
its production down at 1603. Hunter again decides for 1609; 
but the Rev. Wm. Harness ^ declares for 1602-3. Knight does 



^ " The Authorship of Shakespeare," by Nathaniel Holmes, Judge, and 
Professor of Law in Harvard University, pp. 48, 49, 50. 

^ The following is the statement of Harness, at the introduction of this 



" This play was entered at Stationers' Hall, Feb., 1602-3, under the title of 
* The Booke of Troilus and Cressida, ' and was therefore probably written in 
1602. It was not printed till 1609, when it was preceded by an advertise- 
ment of the editor, stating that ' it had never been staled with the stage, 
never clapper-clawed with the palms of the vulgar.' Yet, as the tragedy was 
entered in 1602-3, as acted by my Lord Chamberlain's men, we must suppose 
that the editor's words do not mean that it had never been presented at all, 
but only at court, and not on the public stage. 

" There was a play upon this subject, written by Decker and Chettle, in 
1599; the original story of 'Troilus and Cressida' was the work of Lollius, a 
historiographer of Urbino, in Italy, It was, according to Dryden, written in 
Latin verse, and translated by Chaucer. Shakespeare received the greater 



2 8o Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

not positively fix upon any date ; but I may remark^ tliat had he 
and his contempoi'aries foreseen the question of Baconism which 
has heen raised upon the above erroneous duplicatioUj much more 
attention would probably have been devoted to the date of 
publication. It must be admitted^ however^ that very plausible 
evidence in favour of 1609 is to be found in the printer^s preface 
of the edition of that date. 

This printer-'s or editor^s preface is headed or addressed as 
follows : — 

"A Never Weitee, to an Ever Eeader. 
'^ Newes. 
" Eternall reader^ you have heere a new play never stal'd with 
the stage^ never clapper-clawed with the palmes of the vulger, 
and yet passing full of the palme comicall ; for it is a birth 
of a braine_, that never undertook anything comicall vainely; 
and were but the vaine name of comedies changde for the titles 
of commodoties, or of playes for pleaSj you should see all those 
grand censors, that now stile them such vanities,, flock to them 
for the main grace of their gravities ; especially, this author^s 
comedies that are so framM to the life, that they serve for the 
most common commentaries of all the actions of our lives, 
showing such a dexteritie, and power of witte, that the most dis- 
pleased with playes are pleased with his comedies. So much 
and such savorM salt of witte is in his comedies, that they seem 
to be borne in that sea that brought forth Venus. Amongst all 
there is none more witty than this; and had I time I would 
comment upon it, though I know it needs not (for so much as 
will make you think your testern well bestowM), but for so much 
worth, as even poore I know to be stuft in it — certainly, there 
can be no doubt of that, your worship. It deserves such a 
labour, as well as the best comedy in Terence or Plautus ; and, 
believe this, when hee is gone, and his comedies out of sale, you 
will scramble for them, and set up a new inquisition. Take this 
for a warning, and at the perill of your pleasures losse and judg- 
ments, refuse not, nor like this the lesse for not sullied with the 
smoaky breath of the multitude; but thanke fortune for the 
'scape it hath made amongst you. Since, by the grand possessors' 

part of his materials from tlie ' Troy Booke ' of Lydgate, and the romance of 
' The Three Destructions of Troy.' " 



"^Troihts and Cressida^ 281 

wills, I believe, you should have pray'd for them, rather 
than been prayM. And so I leave all such to be pray'd for 
(for the states of their wits' healths) that will not praise it. — 
Vale!" 

The extremity to which the Baconians are driven for their 
arguments is strikingly manifest in the assumption, by Judge 
Holmes, that the above preface was written by the author of the 
play, inasmuch as '' the printer," says the Judge, " would expect 
the author himself to furnish the preface, as well then as now/' 
Consequently, either Bacon or Shakespeare is supposed to have 
correctly described himself in the caption or head-line of the 
address^ as — 

" A never writer to an ever reader." 

Unfortunately for the theory of this assumed confession, 
Shakespeare has been mentioned, by his contemporary, Meares, 
as the reputed author of several plays, previous to 1598, two of 
them bearing his name as author, while in 1593-4, four years 
earlier, he had dedicated his undisputed " Venus and Adonis," 
and his " Bape of Lucrece," to the Earl of Southampton, over 
his own signature. These latter, and the Sonnets which accom- 
pany them, are indisputably Shakespeare's productions, and are 
filled with proofs, not only in the marks of his genius, but in 
numerous forms of expression, that their author was entirely 
capable of the production of the dramas which followed under 
the same name ; nay, that the same mind must have produced 
them both. If, therefore, William Shakespeare did not write 
the Shakespearian dramas, the questions arise, who wrote Venus 
and Adonis, Lucrece, and the Sonnets ? And let me ask who 
claims the latter for Sir Francis Bacon ? 

Besides, it is illogical to attempt to fix the date of the produc- 
tion of " Troilus and Cressida " as subsequent to the production 
of Bacon's "Advancement" (in 1605), simply because the 
printer's preface to the edition of 1609 speaks of it as a new 
play, which had never been " sullied with the smoaky breath of 
the moiltitude." For it is admitted that it had not been played 
previous to 1609, and that then, having been first performed at 
court "before the King's Majesty,^^ by the Lord Chamberlain's 
players, on the occasion of some royal revels, it passed into the 
printer's hands, on its transition to the general public. Moreover, 



282 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View, 

everything in the preface indicates that the author of the play 
could not have been the writer of that bombastic eifusion. Such 
self-laudation would have been repulsive ; and Shakespeare's 
well-known modesty about his writings^ or, at least, his notorious 
indifference to their renown, except in the way of dramatic 
exhibition, is utterly at variance with any such charge against 
him, and certainly, also, as against Bacon. The whole tenor of 
the preface indicates rather that Shakespeare, who had written 
the play in 1603-3, had, after it had been held in reserve for six 
years, touched it up for the use of the court revels of 1609, and 
then had sold the copyright to some publisher, that he might 
produce it as a new play, with such introductory remarks as he 
pleased. Whether the misquoted phrase from Aristotle was in 
the original sketch of 1603-3, and was copied therefrom into the 
" Advancement " by Bacon, who had probably heard it read 
(along with the Lords Essex and Southampton, as was cus- 
tomary between patrons and authors in those days), or whether 
Shakespeare had interpolated the phrase from the "Advance- 
ment '' into his perfect play of 1609, is not material to the 
point of authorship. The instances in literature of such plagia- 
risms are innumerable, and as the whole world has been tres- 
passing upon the mind of Shakespeare as a general literary com- 
mon for over two hundred years, the presumption that Bacon 
copied, from memory, the Aristotlean expression, with its error, 
from Shakespeare, instead of Shakespeare from Bacon, has far 
the greatest share of probability. First, because it was an 
erroneous translation, which Bacon would not have made had 
he translated the phrase for himself; and, second, because 
Shakespeare, in his first sketch of 1603-3, undoubtedly 
changed the Aristotlean term of "political philosophy '^ to that 
of " moral philosophy," in order to adapt the rebuke of 
Hector to Paris and Troilus — both of whom were notoriously 
immoral young gallants. ■ I think that in this we have 
the secret of the paraphrase; and I believe that, while the 
change of the word political for moral was intentional with 
Shakespeare, the plagiarism resulted from Bacon's taking it 
on trust, in using it. In this connexion it should be 
mentioned that Bacon expresses the same opinions, some- 
what more fuUy, in the "De Augmentis '' (published in 1633), 
that " young men are less fit auditors of policy than of morals, 



*' Troilus and CressidaJ" 283 

until they have been thoroughly seasoned in religion and the 
doctrine of morals." * 

It must be borne in mind, moreover, that at the time Bacon 
published the "Advancement" (1605), where this erroneous 
quotation first appeared under Ids auspices, William Shake- 
speare was the reigning literary reputation, both as a dramatist 
and poet ; and we may somewhat measure the extent of the fame 
which our poet acquired in his own day and generation by 
the fact that, though he died in 1616, there were six reprints of 
his works, in quarto form, between that date and the appearance 
of the folio edition of 1623. Yet, though Bacon lived to see 
the great renown of Shakespeare, and to make a most careful 
revise of his own works in 1625, these Baconian claimants would 
have us believe, in one breath, that he was utterly indifferent to 
the revision of these wondrous dramas, and in the next, that he 
was secretly so thirsty for their just appreciation, as to have 
written aprinter^s preface to one of them, in 1609, claiming it to 
be the equal of "the best comedy in Terence or Plautus." 
Again, though these mighty dramatic creations never received 
any correcting touch from Bacon's hand, one of his own acknow- 
ledged works was revised by him twelve times. Another point 
made by the Baconians is, that the name of William Shakespeare 
is never once mentioned in all of Bacon's voluminous productions, 
nor is Bacon's name alluded to by Shakespeare j and yet Shake- 
speare was the man who notoriously, even to the perceptions of 
that age, divided with the great philosopher the renown of the 
realm of thought. The Baconians declare this silence as to 
Shakespeare to be a part of the philosopher's theory of con- 
cealment ; but would it not be more natural to regard it as 
an evidence of literary jealousy? Shakespeare divided the 
applause of the world with one who had expected to bear the 
palm alone; Judge Holmes, Delia Bacon, and their followers, 
try to mend the matter by rolling both these human wonders 
into one. 

The original source of the story of "Troilus and Cressida" was, 
accco-ding to Dryden, one Lollius, a Lombard, who wrote it in 
Latin verse, from which it was translated by Chaucer, and 
put into English lines, in the form of a poem of five long 

3 Holmes' " Authorship of Shakespeare," p. 49. 



284 Shakespeare^ from an American Point of View. 

cantos. It must be noticed, too, that there were also three 
English ballads during the sixteenth century which, accord- 
ing to Halliwell, treated of the same subject ; and, likewise, 
a piece of the same title which was written by Chettle 
and Decker, about 1599. The common originator of all these 
English productions, however, was the poet Chaucer, "who," 
remarks Knight, " was the one who would have the great- 
est charm for Shakespeare .... though the whole 
story, under the treatment of Shakespeare, becomes thoroughly 
original.''^ 

Coleridge thinks that it was the object of Shakespeare, in 
this grand Homeric poem, "to translate the poetic heroes of 
Paganism into the not less rude, but more intellectually vigorous, 
and more featurely warriors of Christian chivalry, and to sub- 
stantiate the distinct and graceful profiles or outlines of the 
Homeric epic, into the flesh and blood of the romantic drama.'^ 
In the estimation of that very scholarly and competent American 
critic, Gulian C. Verplanck, the beauties of this play " are of the 
highest order. It contains passages fraught with moral truth 
and polical wisdom — high truths, in large and philosophical dis- 
course, such as remind us of the loftiest disquisitions of Hooker, 

or Jeremy Taylor, on the foundations of social law 

The piece abounds, too, in passages of the most profound and 
persuasive practical ethics, and grave advice for the government 
of life." 

" The feeling which the study of Shakespeare^s ' Troilus and 
Cressida^ calls forth,'^ says Knight, "is that of almost pros- 
tration before the marvellous intellect which has produced 
itJ . . . . But the play cannot be understood upon a 
mere superficial reading; it is full of the most subtle art. 
"We may set aside particular passages, and admire their surpass- 
ing eloquence — their profound wisdom; but it is long before 
the play, as a whole, obtains its proper mastery over the under- 
standing.'^ 

All of the above eulogiums, upon the merits of the better 
parts of this most wonderful drama, must be heartily admitted ; 
nevertheless, the main and most conspicuous aspect of the piece 
is that of an essay inculcating female licentiousness and prostitu- 
tion. The knights of Troy, with the heroic Hector at their 
head, wield their swords to protect the abandoned Helen in her 



** Troihis and Cressida" 285 

adulterous joysj and an -uncle and a father scheme to lead the 
beautiful but sensuous Cressida to a harlot^s bed. All that is 
abandoned and debased in woman is made to figure agreeably in 
these two alluring wantons ; while the language of the latter is 
deliberately framed to stir the coarser appetites of the general 
audience. Well may it be assumed that Bacon would naturally 
have been ashamed to acknowledge his patronage of such a 
theme as this ; and, for the matter of that, William Shakespeare 
also ! Nevertheless, the play, in despite of the lowness of its 
leading motive, is certainly one of the greatest of our bard^s 
productions. 

One thing is certain, the broad text and lascivious pictures of 
this play, and those also of " Timon of Athens,^' which follows it, 
could not have flamed from the cold-brained philosopher whose 
biographers delight to report as one whose " habits were regular, 
frugal, and temperate, and whose life was pure.^^ ^ 

Certainly, no " frugal, temperate philosopher of sober habits and 
pure life " could have acquired that quickness of the amorous sense 
which enabled Shakespeare, through the language of Ulysses, 
to picture, as it were, that dancing white heat which constantly 
played about Cressida's dimpled limbs — that satin sheen of 
procreative mystery; that torrid atmosphere of quivering noon; 
that lambent loveliness which, in the interest of nature, bathes 
even ugliness with a lurid charm. 

Ulysses. Fye, fye upon her ! 

There's language in her eye, her cheek, her lip, 
Nay, her foot speaks ; her wanton spirits look out 
At every joint and motion of her body. 
O, these encounterers, so glib of tongue, 
That give a coasting welcome ere it comes, 
And wide unclasp the tables of their thoughts 
To every ticklish reader ! Set them down 
For sluttish spoils of opportunity. 
And daughters of the game. 

This was not the voice of the philosophic sage issuing from 
" the tranquil retreats at Gorhambury,'' breathing from " the 

^ See, in Act IV. Scene 1 of " Hamlet," the throe last lines of the king's 
third speech. 



286 Shakespeare, from a7i American Point of View. 

■ classic groves of Twickenham Park/' or ^' the musty cloisters of 
Gray's Innj" but the luxurious soul of the handsome London 
manager, whose amorous wrongs at the hands of some London 
Cressida were echoed by Leontes in '' Winter''s Tale,'' and re-echoed 
in the agonized wail : 

But", 0, wtiat damned minutes tells lie o'er, 

Who dotes, yet doubts ; suspects, yet strongly loves ! 



SHAKESPEARE S LEGAL ACQUIREMENTS. 

The search made by Lord Chief Justice Campbell, through 
the text of " Troilus and Cressida/' for evidences of the legal 
acquirements of Shakespeare is not very largely rewarded, and I 
do not think that the manner in which his lordship presents 
them adds much to the argument to which they are devoted. 
With the view, however, of being thoroughly just to the learned 
Judge, I herewith transcribe the entire of his remarks upon this 
production : — 

" Troilus and Cressida. — In this play the author shows his 
insatiable desire to illustrate his descriptions of kissing, by his 
recollection of the forms used in executing deeds. When Pan- 
darus (Act III. Scene 2) has brought Troilus and Cressida 
together in the orchard to gratify their wanton inclinations, he 
advises Troilus to give Cressida 'a kiss in fee-farm' which 
Malone explains to be ' a kiss of a duration that has no bounds, 
a fee-farm being a grant of lands in fee, that is, for ever, re- 
serving a rent certain.' 

"The advice of Pandarus to the lovers being taken, he 
exclaims, — 

What ! billing again ? Here's — In witness the parties inter cTiar.ge- 
ably — 

the exact form of the testatum clause in an indenture — ' In witness 
whereof, the parties interchangeably have hereto set their hands 
and seals.' 
."To avoid a return to this figure of speech, I may here 



" Troihis and Cressida!' 287 

mention other instances in which Shakespeare introduces it. In 
" Measure for Measure/'' Act IV. Scene 1 : — 

But my kisses bring again 
Seals of love, but seaVd in vain ; 



and in his poem of ' Venus and Adonis :' — 

Pure lips, sweet seals in my soft lips imprinted, 
What bargains may I make, still to be sealing ?" 

May I hope that the friends of his lordship will excuse me if I 
say that these instances are illustrations only of an acute critical 
faculty having been unduly taxed ? 



288 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

"TIMON of ATHENS." 

This play was supposed to liave been produced by Shakespeare in 
1607-8, but not published until after his death, and then first in 
the folio of 1623. The stoiy is taken mainly from North's 
" Plutarch/' and partly from Lucian. There was, however, an 
Eng-lish manuscript play before it, written by some unknown 
author, which, inasmuch as it contained the character of a faith- 
ful steward, and a mock banqueting- scene like that introduced 
in our poet's version of " Timon,"" has naturally received a portion 
of the credit of its origination. The faithful steward, it may 
readily be supposed from what we have seen of Shakespeare's 
tendencies, would not have appeared in '' Timon," had not some 
one else produced him to his hand, as in the case of Adam in 
"As You Like It;" and it is noticeable, moreover, that in this 
case our poet exhibits a disposition to reward the steward 
Flavins for his honesty, according to the original, which was 
more than he did for poor old Adam. The play is a satire upon 
the gratitude of the world, in which it seems to me that 
Timon is too readily transformed into a misanthrope, because a 
few flatterers, whom he had feasted in his wealthy days, refused 
to lend him money when he failed. 

The first evidence we have of the faithfulness of Plavius is in 
Act II. Scene 2, where we find the steward deploring, with many 
moans, the descent of Timon into bankruptcy. Nevertheless, he 
bewails his master's prodigality with such a natural consideration 
for the continuance of his own profitable post, that he makes no 
great impression for virtuous disinterestedness. 

Flavitjs. Heavens ! have I said, the bounty of this lord ! 

How many prodigal bits have slaves and peasants. 
This night engUitted ! 



" Timon of At kens."" 289 

In the samej and in the following act^ the household servants 
of Timon (chorussed by the servants of the faithless friends) pity 
his fallen fortunes with a cynical tone and motive ; and, at the 
same time, avail themselves of the opportunity to scandalize their 
several employers, to an extent quite in accord with Shakespeare^s 
usual representation of merit in the mean. 

At the opening of the fourth act the bankrupt and disgusted 
Timon appears, self-exiled, without the walls of Athens, on his 
way to the woods, as a recluse : — 

Tim. Let me look back upon thee, thou wall, 

That girdlest in those wolves ! Dive in the earth. 

And fence not Athens ! Matrons turn incontinent ; 

Obedience fail in children ! slaves, and fools, 

Pluck the grave wrinkled senate from the bench. 

And minister in their steads ! to general filths 

Convert o' the instant, green virginity ! 

Do't in your parents' eyes ! bankrupts, hold fast ; 

Eather than render back, out with your knives, 

And cut your trusters' throats ! Bound servants, steal ! 

Large-handed robbers your grave masters are, 

And pill by law ! Maid, to thy master's bed ; 

Thy mistress is o' the brothel ! Son of sixteen, 

Pluck the lined crutch from the old limping sire, 

With it beat out his brains ! 

Presently, when driven by hunger to dig for roots, he discovers 
gold in large quantity at the base of a tree : — 

What is here ? 
Gold ? yellow, glittering, precious gold ? No, gods, 
I am no idle votarist, Eoots, you clear heavens ! 
Thus much of this, will make black white ; foul, fair ; 
Wrong, right ; base, noble ; old, young ; coward, valiant. 
Ha, you gods ! why this ? What this, you gods ? Why this 
Will lug your priests and servants from your sides ; 
Pluck stout men's pillows from below their heads : 
This yellow slave 

Will knit and bi'eak religions ; bless the accursed ; 
Make the hoar leprosy adored ; place thieves, 
And give them title, knee, and approbation. 
With senators on the bench : this is it, 
That makes the wappen'd widow wed again ; 
She, whom the spital-house, and ulcerous sores 
Would cast the gorge at, this embalms and spices 
To the April day again. Come, damned earth, 



290 Shakespeare^ from an American Point of View. 

Thou common whore of mankind, that put'st odds 

Among the rout of nations, I will make thee 

Do thy right nature. — {March afar offj] — Ha ! a drum ? Thou'rt 

quick, 
But yet I'll bury thee : Thou'lt go, strong thief, 
When gouty keepers of thee cannot stand. 

The news of Timon's possession of gold is carried back to 
Athens by the army, and soon his old flatterers flock out to. the 
wood to pay fresh court to him. Among* the rest comes Flavius, 
the steward. He alone receives kind treatment from the misan- 
thrope, along with gold, and Timon recognizes his honesty as 
follows : — 

Tim. Had I a steward so true, so just, and now 

So comfortable ? It almost turns 

My dangerous nature wild. Let me behold 

Thy face. — Surely, this man was born of woman.— 

Forgive my general and exceptless rashness, 

Perpetual-sober gods ! I do proclaim 

One honest man, — mistake me not, — but one ; 

No more, I pray, — and he is a steward. — 

How fain would I have hated all mankind. 

And thou redeem'st thyself : But all, save thee, 

I fell with curses. 

Methinks, thou art more honest now, than wise ; 

For, by oppressing and betraying me. 

Thou might'st have sooner got another service : 

For many so arrive at second masters. 

Upon their first lord's neck. But tell me true, 

(For I must ever doubt, though ne'er so sure), 

Is not thy kindness subtle, covetous. 

If not a usuring kindness ; and as rich men deal gifts. 

Expecting in return twenty for one ? 
Flav. No, my most worthy master, in whose breast 

Doubt and suspect, alas, are placed too late ; 

You should have fear'd false times, when you did feast. 

Suspect stOl comes where an estate is least. 

That which I show, heaven knows, is merely love. 

Tim. Look thee, 'tis so ! Thou singly honest man, 
Here, take : — the gods out of my misery 
Have sent thee treasure. Go, live rich, and happy 
But thus condition'd : Thou shalt build from men ; 
Hate all, curse all : Show charity to none ; 
But let the famish'd flesh slide from the bone, 
Ere thou relieve the beggar : Give to dogs 



" Timon of Athens y 291 

What thou deny'st to men ; let prisons swallow them, 

Dehts wither them : Be men like blasted woods, 

And may diseases lick up their false bloods ! 

And so, farewell, and thrive. 
FiAV. 0, let me stay. 

And comfort you, my master. 
Tim. " If thou hat'st 

Curses, stay not ; fly whilst thou art blest and free : 

Ne'er see thou man, and let me ne'er see thee. 

Act IT. Scene 3. 

I make this quotation at such length because this is the 
second instance^ only, out of twenty-nine plays, in which a man 
of less rank than a noble, or a knight, is spoken of with appro- 
bation and respect. The first instance, as I have already stated, 
is that of old Adam, in " As You Like It.^^ It is worthy of 
observation, however, that one of the characters, at the opening 
of the next act, reports that Timon had given to his steward " a 
mighty sum.^^ And here it should be remarked, moreover, that 
the stewards of great lords and millionaires, like Timon, were often 
of exceedingly good families, as we see by the steward of Goneril 
in '' King Lear,'' who is almost a cabinet minister. 

This play furnishes us with but one other illustration bearing 
on our special points of view; and that springs from the rude 
construction of Timon's epitaph at the close. Those who favour 
the theory that Sir Francis Bacon was the author of the Shake- 
spearian dramas, denounce the epitaph on our poet's tomb, for 
the meanness of its style, and boldly assert that it came from 
Shakespeare when he was drawing near his end, with no one of 
talent near at hand to help construct it. In order to measure 
the worth of this opinion, I will here quote the epitaph from 
Timon, and compare it with the other : — 

Here lies a wretched corse, of wretched soul bereft, 

Seek not my name. A plague consume you wicked caitiffs left ! 

Here lie I, Timon, who, alive, all living men did hate. 

Pass by and curse thy fill ; but pass, and stay not here thy gait. 

The following is the epitaph in the Stratford church, and it 
will be perceived that, so far as style is concerned, one doggerel 
has but little the advantage of the other : — 

Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbear. 
To dig the dust enclosed here. 
Blest be the man that spares these stones, 
And curst be he that moves my bones. 



292 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View, 



CHAPTER XXX. 

" COEIOLANUS." 

'' In the arrangement of the plays of Shakespeare in a serial 
fornij it would seem/^ says Hunter, ^^ that ' Coriolanus ' should 
follow ' Julius Caesar ' and ' Antony and Cleopatra/ since it was 
probably written after them/-' But he also gives it as his opinion 
thatj inasmuch as " Coriolanus '^ belongs to a period of Roman 
history antecedent to that of the Csesars, this play should precede 
the other two dramas in the collected editions of the dramatist's 
works. The Roman plays are remarkably destitute of notes of 
time, internal or external. They were probably produced in 
1607, 1608, or 1609. 

" * Coriolanus ' itself was neither entered at Stationers^ Hall 
nor printed till 1623."' " The leading idea of the play and pivot 
upon which all the action turns,"' says Knight, " is the contest 
for power in Rome between the patricians and plebeians ;" and 
I will add that, in agreement with all Shakespeare's instincts, 
tendencies, and previous exhibitions of aristocratic inclination, 
he again, in this play, constantly sides with arbitrary and 
despotic power against the liberties of the people. 

" The whole dramatic moral of *■ Coriolanus,' " says Hazlitt, " is 
that those who have little shall have less, and that those who 
have much shall take all that others have left. The people 
are poor, therefore they ought to be starved. They work 
hard, therefore they ought to be treated like beasts of burden. 
They are ignorant, therefore they ought not to be allowed to 
feel that they want food, or clothing, or rest, or that they are 
enslaved, oppressed, and miserable." ^ 

"We see Coriolanus," says Gervinius, "as the chief re- 
presentative of the aristocracy, in strong opposition to The 

1 Hazlitt's "Characters of Shakespeare's Plays," p. 74, edition 1818. 



" Coriolantis" 



293 



People and the Tribunes^ hence we naturally take up the view 
expressed by Hazlitt, that Shakespeare had a leaning to the 
arbitrary side of the question, to the aristocratical principle/ in- 
asmuch as he does not dwell on the truths he tells of the nobles 
in the same proportion as he does on those he tells of The 
People/^ " 

" In this struggle/^ says the astute German, " the hero finds 
himself placed in a situation where he has to choose between his 

patriotism and his private feelings of hatred Corio- 

lanus renounced a hatred of the enemy of his people, to the 
ruin of his country, being politically and morally hardened in 
selfishness/^ Pursuing his analysis of the character of Corio- 
lanus, the German critic further on exclaims, — 

" What induced Shakespeare to endow the hero of this play 
with this superhuman, demi-godlike greatness ? History im- 
posed upon the poet a catastrophe of the rarest kind. Corio- 
lanus, after his banishment, fights against his country, for 
which, before, he would have striven in the hardest battles 
without requiring any reward ; he enters into a league with his 
bitterest enemy from a cold, unfeeling thirst for vengeance j 
then, at the certain peril of his life, he suddenly abandons this 
revenge at the entreaty of his mother. These contradictions, 
Shakespeare thought, could only be imputed to a man who, from 
nature and education, had carried his virtues and his faults to 
extremes which rendered natural the change of his different 
qualities into their opposites. This is managed with an art and 
a delicacy that can scarcely be suspected in the apparently coarse 
strokes of this delineation. First, his unmeasured thirst for 
glory, which, in an heroic age, can only seek its satisfaction in 
the praise bestowed on the highest valour." 

" The subject of ' Coriolanus,' '''' says Dowden, " is the ruin of 
a noble life through the sin of pride." Further on he remarks, 
'^ It cannot be denied that when The People are seen in masses 
in Shakespeare^s plays, they are nearly always shown as factious, 

fickle, and irrational Shakespeare studied and represented 

in his, art the world which lay before him. If he prophesied the 
future, it was not in the ordinary manner of prophets, but only 
by completely embodying the present, in which 'the future was 
contained/' 

^ Gervinius, p. 748. 
20 



2 94 Shakespeare, from an American Point of Vieu>. 

This is very subtle and ingenious ; but it has no force in face 
of the monstrous manner in which Shakespeare falsified the 
character of Jack Cade, and that, too, directly against the au- 
thority of Hall and HoUinshed, the two contemporaneous court 
historians of the period, who in other matters he always trusted. 
" The author of ' Coriolanus,' '' says Mr. Walter Bagehot,^ 
" never believed in a mob, and did something towards preventing 
anybody else from doing so. But this political idea was not 

exactly the strongest in Shakespeare^s mind He had two 

others stronger, or as strong. First, the feeling of loyalty towards 
the ancient polity of his country, not because it was good, but 
because it existed The second peculiar tenet of his poli- 
tical creed is a disbelief in the middle classes. We fear he had 
no opinion of traders. .... You will generally find that when 
a citizen is mentioned, he is made to do or to say something 
absurd." 

With these views from the foreign critics, I desire, on my own 
part, to direct the attention of the reader, before proceeding to 
let Shakespeare speak for himself through extracts from this play, 
to the fact that he will find that its main purpose is to deride the 
principle of popular suffrage ; nay, to deny and scoff at popular 
rights of all sorts, and especially to make the working classes 
look mean, meritless, and cowardly. Coriolanus, the haughty 
patrician, on the other hand, though he is a cruel, con- 
ceited, overbearing brute, with no more policy or manners than 
are necessary to a brawny gladiator, is so handled by our poet 
as to irresistibly win the sympathies of every audience. The 
most singular, nay, surprising proof of this power of enchant- 
ment on the part of Shakespeare, is elicited from American 
audiences, who, in the face of their democratic principles, up- 
roariously applaud the patrician despot at every insult he puts 
upon the masses, and hurrah at every mock he makes at their 
competency to exercise the suffrage. This, while it says a great 
deal for the power of Shakespeare, reflects very little credit upon 
the discrimination of the American people ; except, indeed, their 
admiration for his genius is to be set above their respect for 
republican principles. 

3 " Estimates of some Englishmen and Scotcfimen," by Walter Bagehot, 
pp. 257—260. 



" CoriolanusJ* 295 

I will now proceed to allow Shakespeare to speak for himself, 
with the simple further explanation that a great extent of text 
is necessary^ because^ as I said before^ the whole of this play is an 
essay against human rights and popular liberty : — 

Act I. Scene 1. — Some. A Street. 
Enter a company of mutinous Citizens, witJi staves, clubs, and oilier 

weapons. 

1 CiT. Before we proceed any further, hear me speak. 

CiT. Speak, speak. \_Several speaJcing at once. 

I CiT. You are all resolved rather to die, than to famish. 

CiT. Eesolved, resolved. 

1 CiT. First, you know, Caius Mtircius [Coriolanus] is chief enemy to the 
people. 

CiT. We know't, we know't. 

1 CiT. Let us kill him, and we'll have corn at our own price. Is't a ver- 
dict.? 

CiT. No more talking on't : let it he done : away, away. 

2 CiT. One word, good citizens. 

1 CiT. We are accounted poor citizens ; the patricians good : What authority 
surfeits on, would relieve us ; If they would yield us hut the superfluity, 
while it were wholesome, we might guess, they relieved us humanely ; hut 
they think, we are too dear; the leanness that afflicts us, the object of our 
misery, is an inventory to particularize their abundance ; our sufferance is a 
gain to them. — Let us revenge this with our pikes, ere we becomerakes : for 
the gods hnoio I speak this in hunger for bread, oiot in thirst for revenge. 

2 CiT. Would you proceed especially against Caius Marcius ? 
CiT. Against him first ; he's a very dog to the commonality. 

2 CiT. Consider you what services he has done for his country ? 

1 CiT. Very well ; and could be content to give him good report for't, hut 
that he pays himself with being proud. 

2 CiT. Nay, but speak not maliciously. 

1 CiT. I say unto you, what he hath done famously, he did it to that end ; 
though soft conscienced men can be content to say, it was for his country, he 
did it to please his mother, and to be partly proud ; which he is, even to the 
altitude of his virtue. 

2 CiT. What he cannot help in his nature, you account a vice in him : 
You must in no way say, he is covetous. 

1 CiT. If I must not, I need not be barren of accusations ; he hath faults, 
with surplus, to tire in repetition. [_Shouts tuithin.j What shouts are 
these ? The other side o' the city is risen : Why stay we prating here ? to 
the Capitol. 

CiT. Come, come. 

1 CiT. Soft ; who comes here ? 

Enter Menenius Ageippa [_a Fatrician and the close friend of CoEio- 
LANTJS, or Caius Mabcius, as he is yet called'^. 

2 CiT. Worth}?- Menenius Agrippa ; one that hath always loved the people 



296 Shakespeare^ from an American Point of View. 

1 CiT. He's one honest enougli ; 'Would all tlie rest were so ! 
Men. What work's, my countrymen, in hand ? Where go you, 
With hats and clubs ? The matter ? Speak, I pray you. 
1 CiT. Our business is not unknown to the senate ; they have had inkling 
this fortnight, what we intend to do, which now we'll show 'em in deeds. 
They say poor suitors have strong breaths ; they shall Icnoio we have strong 
arms, too. 

Men. Why, masters, my good friends, mine honest neighbours, 

Will you undo yourselves ? 
1 CiT. We cannot, sir, we are undone already. 
Men. I tell you, friends, most charitable care 

Have the patricians of you. For your wants. 
Your suffering in this dearth, you may as well 
Strike at the heaven with your staves, as lift them 
Against the Eoman state ; whose course will on 
The way it takes, cracking ten thousand curbs 
Of more strong link asunder, than can ever 
Appear in your impediment : For the dearth, 
The gods, not the patricians, make it ; and 
Your knees to them, not arms, must help. Alack, 
You are transported by calamity 
Thither where more attends you ; and you slander 
The helms 0' the state, who care for you like fathers. 
When you curse them as enemies. 
1 CiT. Care for us ! — True, indeed ! — They ne'er cared for us yet. Suffer 
us to famish, and their storehouses crammed with grain; make edicts for 
usury, to support usurers ; repeal daily any wholesome act established against 
the rich ; and provide more piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain 
the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will ; and there's all the love they 
bear us. 

.a* Jt» -u. 

w w ■?!* 

Enter Coeiolanus [loho has just come from quelling a Iread riot in 
another part of the cityl. 

CoE. Thanks. — What's the matter, you dissentious rogues. 
That rubbing the poor itch of your opinion, 
Mahe yourselves scabs ? 

1 CiT. We have ever your good word. 

CoE. He that wUl give good words to thee, will flatter 

Beneath abhorring. — What would you have, you curs. 
That like not peace, nor war ? The one affrights you, 
The other mahes you proud. Se that trusts you. 
Where he should find you lions, finds you hares ; 
Where foxes, geese : You are no surer, no. 
Than is the coal of fire upon the ice, 
Or hailstone in the sun. Your virtue is. 
To make him worthy, whose offence subdues him. 
And cui'se that justice did it. Who deserves greatness 



'' Coriolanus.'* 297 

Deserves your hate : and your affections are 

A sick man's appetite, who desires most that 

Which would increase his evil. He that depends 

Upon your favours, swims with fins of lead, 

And hews down oaks with rushes. Hang ye ! Trust ye ? 

With every minute you do change a mind ; 

And call him noble, that was now your hate, 

Him vile, that was your garland. Wliat's the matter. 

That in these several places of the city 

You cry against the nohle senate, loho. 

Under the gods, Jceep you in atoe, which else 

Would feed on one another ? — What's their seeking ? 

Men. For com at their own rates ; whereof, they say, 
The city is well stored. 

CoE. Hang 'em ! They say ! 

They'll sit hy thefire,^ and presume to hnow 
Wliat's done in the Capitol : who's like to rise, 
Who thrives, and who declines : side factions, and give out 
Conjectural marriages ; making parties strong, 
And feebling such as stand not in their liking. 
Below their cobbled shoes. They say, there's grain enough ? 
Would the nobility lay aside their ruth. 
And let me use my sword, I'd make a quarry 
With thousands of these quarter 'd slaves, as high 
As I could pick my lance. 

Men. Nay, these are almost thoroughly persuaded j 
For though abundantly they lack discretion, 
Yet are they passing cowardly. But, I beseech you. 
What says the other troop ? 

CoE. They are dissolved : hang 'em ! 

They said, they were an-hungry ; sigh'd forth proverbs ;— 

That, hunger broke stone walls ; that, dogs must eat ; 

That, meat was made for mouths : that, the gods sent not 

Corn for the rich men only :— With these shreds 

They vented their complainings ; which being answer'd, 

And a petition granted them, a strange one 

(To break the heart of generosity, 

And make bold power look pale), they threw their caps 

As they would hang them on the horns o' the moon, 

Shouting their exultation. 

Men. What is granted them ? 



* The poor have no fireplaces in Eome, and no stoves, except for cooking 
purposes, and these are supplied only with charcoal. The climate does not 
require it. Could Bacon, who had travelled in Italy, make such a mistake as 
this? 



298 Shakespeare^ from an American Point of View. 

CoE. Five tribunes to defend their vulgar wisdoms, 
Of their own choice : One's Junius Brutus, 
Sicinius Velutus, and I know not — 'SdeatJi I 
The rabhle should have first unroof 'd the city, 
JEo'e so prevail' d with me ; it will in time 
Win upon power, and throw forth greater themes 
For insurrection's arguing. 

Men. This is strange. 

CoE. Go, get you home, you fragments ! 
Enter a Messenger. 

Mess. Where's Caius Marcius ? 

CoE. Here. What's the matter ? 

Mess. The news is, sir, the Volsces are in arms. 

CoE. I am glad on't ; then, we shall have means to vent 
Our musty superfluity. * * 

1 Senatoe {to the citizens). Hence ! To your homes ! begone ! 

CoE. Nay, let them follow. 

The Volsces have much corn : talce these rats thither 
To gnaw their garners. — Worshipful mutineers, 
Your valour puts well forth : pray, follow. 
Exeunt SEliTATOES, CoEiOLANUS andfolloioers. The citizens steal aioay. 

The scene now changes to Coriolij the chief city of the 
Volsci, where Tullus Aufidius^ the great rival of Coriolanus, 
harangues the Volscian Senate in favour of war against Rome. 
This scene is followed by a long* colloquy between Volumnia^ the 
arrogant mother of Coriolanus^ and Virgilia, his shrinking, 
gentle wife, about his personal merits and the prospects of the 
pending strife. The audience being thus prepared, the scene 
opens before Corioli, where Coriolanus, with his forces, stand 
drawn up for battle, in advance of his camp. The Volsces 
issue from the city and make the assault, and after some light- 
ing, the Romans, though having gained some temporary 
advances, are finally beaten back to their trenches. 

CoE. All the contagion of the south light on you, 

You shames of Kome ! — you herd of — Boils and plagues 
Plaster you o'er ; that you may be abhorred 
Further than seen, and one infect another 
Against the wind a mile ! You souls of geese. 
That bear the shapes of men, how have you run 
From slaves that apes would beat ? Pluto and hell ! 
All hurt behind ; backs red, and faces pale 
With flight and agued fear ! Mend, and charge home, 
Or, by the fires of heaven, I'll leave the foe, 



" Coriolanus." 299 

And make my wars on you : look to't : Come on ; 
If you'll stand fast, we'll beat them to their wives, 
As they us to our trenches followed. 
Another alarum. The Volsces and Romans re-enter, and the fight is 
reneioed. The Volsces retire into GorioU, and Ma-rcivs follows them to 

the gates. 
So, now the gates are ope : — Now prove good seconds : 
'Tis for the followers fortune widens them, 
Not for tlie fliers : mark me, and do the like. 

[jffe enters the gates, and is shut in. 

This daring example inspires the Romans to fresh efforts, and 
they force the gates, overcome the Volsces, and capture their 
city. This is followed by a scene among the Roman soldiers, 
after having sacked the town, which is so perfectly in keeping 
with one described by Russell, of the capture of Sebastopol, and 
by several American army correspondents who followed the line 
of Sherman^s march, that it seems to indicate that Shakespeare, 
who never attended a campaign, had an instinctive insight into 
everything. In sketching the Roman soldier, he really described 
the common soldier of every country, and of all time. 

Scene 5. — Within the Town. A Street. 
JEJnter certain Somans zvith sjpoils. 

1 EoM. This will I carry to Eome. 

2 EoM. And I this, 

3 EoM. A murrain on't ! I took this for silver. 

\_Alarum continues still afar off. 
Enter CoEiOLANtJS and TiTus Laetius %oith a truim^et. 
CoE. See here these movers, that do prize their hours. 
At a crack'd drachm ! Cushions, leaden spoons. 
Irons of a doit, doublets that hangmen would 
Bary with those that wore them, these base slaves. 
Ere yet the fight be done, pack up : — Down with them. 

Scene 6. — 'Near the Itoman Camp o/'Cominius. 
Enter Coeiolanus, hloody. 
CoE. Come I too late ? 

Com. Ay, if you come not in the blood of others, 
But mantled in your own. 

* # * 

Where is that slave. 
Which told me they had beat you to your trenches ? 
Where is lie ? Call him hither. 
CoE. Let him alone, 

He did inform the truth ; hittfor our gentlemen. 



300 Shakespeare, fro7?i an American Point of View. 

The common file, — (A plague ! Tribunes for them ?) 
The mouse ne'er shunn'd the cat, as they did hudge 
From rascals worse than they. 

In the second act Caius Marcius is invested witli tlie hono- 
rary title of " Coriolanus " (which, for convenience, I have ah-eady 
used) J and is brought forward by the Senate and patricians as 
their candidate for Consul. The process of running for that 
office required the candidate to appear publicly in the market- 
place, clad in " a garment of humility •'■' made of coarse stuff, 
and to meekly solicit, under the auspices of the Tribunes, the 
suffi-ages of The People. The Tribunes of The People, conse- 
quently, though necessarily plebeians, were men of great power 
and prestige, for they could wield the masses so as to either 
secure or defeat an aristocrat's election ; while The People them- 
selves, who so abjectly cringed under innumerable strokes of 
degradation, still insisted upon having their candidates come 
humbly to the market-place, and wear the livery of application. 
The masses, however, were always easily controlled by the 
Tribunes. As an evidence of the power of the Tribunal office, it 
is only necessary to refer to the fact that, in Julius Caesar's time, 
Clodius (the violator of the sacred mysteries of the Bona Dea), 
one of the most noble of the old patrician families, and who, at 
the same time, was possessed of vast wealth as well as family 
influence, chose, by way of revenging himself on Cicero, to re- 
pudiate his own aristocratic birth and honours, and to resign his 
power and prestige as a Senator, in order to be elected a Tribune 
of The People. By dint of incessant efforts, and by distributing 
his immense means with an unsparing hand, he accomplished his 
object, and having enticed the plebeians under his profitable and 
tumultuous banner, succeeded in driving the influential and in- 
comparable orator into exile.* 

As to the dress worn by the applicants for the consulship, we 
get a clear and satisfactory idea from Plutarch, who says, — 

" It was the custom for those who were candidates for such a 
high office to solicit and caress the people in the forum, and, at 
those times, to be clad in a loose gown without the tunic; 
whether that humlle dress was thought more suitable for suppli- 
ants, or whether it was for the convenience of shoioing their toomids, 
as so many tokens of valour. Por it was not from any suspicion 

° " Life of Marcus Julius Cicero," by William Forsyth (London : John 
Murray, 1869), pp. 155, 175, 176. 



" Coriolanus.'* 301 

the citizens then had of bribery, that they required the candi- 
dates to appear before them ungirt_, and without any close gar- 
ment, when they came to beg their votes ; since it was much 
later than this, and indeed many ages after, that buying and 
selling stole in, and money came to be the means of gaining an 
election. Then, corruption reaching also the tribunals and the 
camps, arms were subdued by money, and the commonwealth 
was changed into a monarchy/'' ® 

This, though written of a period four hundred and eighty- 
eight years before the Christian era, furnishes a suggestive lesson 
to Americans to-day. 

In the first scene of the second act, we find what is re- 
garded as the best recommendation of Coriolanus for his civic 
candidature : — 

Meneniits. Marclus is coming home — Where is he wounded ? 
VoLUMNiA \tlie mother of Coeiolanus]. I' the shoulder, and i' the left 
arm : There will be large cicatrices to show the people, when he shall 
stand for his place. He received in the repulse of Tarquin, seven hurts 
i' the body. 

Men. One in the neck, and two in the thigh, — there's nine that I know. 
Vol. He had, before this last expedition, twenty-five wounds upon him. 
Men. Now it's twenty-seven ; every gash was an enemy's grave. [_A shout 
and flourish.'] Hark ! the trumpets. • 

Vol. These are the ushers of Marcius : before him 

He carries noise, and behind him he leaves tears ; 
Death, that dark spirit, in 's nervy arm doth lie ; 
Which being advanced, declines : and then men die. 

Coriolanus at this point enters, receives his triumph, and 
then, exhibiting some impatience at the popular acclaim, remarks 
restively that 

The good patricians must be visited, 

and passes on, amid the sound of trumpets and the acclamations 
of the multitude, to the capitol. Thereupon Brutus (not the 
Brutus of Csesar^s time), and Sicinius, the Tribunes of The People, 
deliver themselves as follows : — 

Betj. All tongues speak of him, and the bleared sights 
Are spectacled to see him ; your prattling nurse 
Into a rupture lets her baby cry, 
While she chats him ; the kitchen malkin pins 
Her richest lockram 'bout her reechy neck, 

^ Langhorne's " Plutarch " (Harper and Brothers, 1874), p. 169. 



302 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View, 

Clambering the walls to eye lilm : Stalls, bulks, windows, 

Are smother'd up, leads fill'd, and ridges borsed 

With Tariable complexions ; all agreeing 

In earnestness to see bim. : seld-sbown flamens 

Do press among the popular tbrongs, and puff 

To win a vulgar station : our veil'd dames 

Commit tbe war of wbite and damask, in 

Tbeir nicely-gauded cbeeks, to the wanton spoil 

Of Phoebus' burning kisses : such a pother. 

As if that whatsoever god, who leads him, 

Were slily crept into bis human powers, « 

And gave him graceful posture. 
Sic. On tbe sudden, 

I warrant him consul. 
Beu. Then our office may, 

During bis power go sleep. 

# * * 

I beard him swear, 

Were he to stand for consul, never would be 

Appear i' the market-place, nor on him put 

The napless vesture of humility ; 

Nor, showing (as the manner is) bis wounds 

To the peo;ple, heg their stinJcing hreaths. 

TS" Vi* TT 

Sic. I wish no better. 

Than to have bim bold that purpose, and to put it 
In execution. 

Enter a Messenger, 

Betj. What's the matter? 

Mess. You are sent for to tbe Capitol. 'Tis thought 
That Marcius shall be consul : I have seen 
Tbe dumb men throng to see bim, and tbe blind 
To bear him speak : Tbe matrons flung their gloves. 
Ladies and maids their scarfs and handkerchiefs, 
Upon bim as be pass'd ; the nobles bended, 
As to Jove's statue ; and the commons made 
A shower, and thunder, with tbeir caps, and shouts : 
I never saw the like. 

Beit. Let's to tbe Capitol, 

And carry with us ears and eyes for the time, 
But hearts for the event. 

Scene 2. — The Capitol. 
Enter two Oncers, to lay cushions. 

1 Officer. Come, come, they are almost here : How many stand for con- 
sulships .P 

2 Off. Three, they say : but 'tis thought of every one, Coriolanus will 
carry it. 



" Coriolantis." 



303 



1 Off. That's a brave fellow ; Lut lie's vengeance proud, and loves not the 
common people. . . . If he did not care whether he had their 
love, or no, he waved indifferently 'twixt doing them neither good, nor 
harm ; but he seeks their hate with greater devotion than they can render it 
him ; and leaves nothing undone, that may fully discover him their opposite. 
Now, to seem to affect the malice and displeasure of the people, is as bad as 
that which he dislikes, to flatter them for their love. 

Coriolanus then comes in, but the flattery which is lavished 
upon him displeases his disdainful nature to such an extent that 
he retires, under the apparent pressure of a wounded modesty : — 

CoE. I had rather have one scratch my head i' the sun. 

When the alarum were struck, than idly sit 

To hear my nothings monstered. \_Exit. 

Mejst. Masters of the people, 

Your multiplying spaton Jiow can lie flatter 

(That's thousand to one good one), when you now see, 

He had rather venture all his limbs for honour, 

Than one on 's ears to hear it P — Proceed, Cominius. 
Com. I shall lack voice : the deeds of Coriolanus 

Should not be utter'd feebly. — It is held, 

That valour is the chiefest virtue, and 

Most dignifies the haver : if it be. 

The man I speak of cannot in the world 

Be singly counterpoised. 

Before and in Corioli, let me say, 

I cannot speak him home : he stopp'd the fliers ; 

And by his rare example made the coward 

Turn terror into sport. As weeds before 

A vessel under sail, so men obey'd, 

And fell below his stem. His sword, death's stamp, 

Where it did mark, it took. From face to foot 

He was a thing of blood, whose every motion 

Was tuned with dying cries. Alone he enter'd 

The moi*tal gate of the city, which he painted 

With shunless destiny, aidless came off. 

And with a sudden reinforcement struck 

Corioli like a planet. 

!5& ^ W 

Com. Our spoils he kick'd at 

And look'd upon things precious, as they were 
The common muck 0' the world ; he covets less 
Than misery itself would give ; rewards 
His deeds with doing them ; and is content 
To spend the time to end it. 

* * * 



304 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

Re-enter Coeiolanus. 
Men. The Senate, Coriolanus, are well pleased 

To make thee consul. 
CoE. I do owe them still 

My life, and services. 
Men. It then remains, 

That you do speak to the people. 
CoE. I do beseech you, 

Let me o'erleap that custom ; for I cannot 

Put on the gown, stand naked, and entreat them, 

Tor my wounds' sake, to give their suffrage. Please you, 

That I may pass this doing. 
Sic. Sir, the people 

Must have their voices ; neither wiU they bate 

One jot of ceremony. 
CoE. It is a part 

That I shall blush in acting, and might well 

Se taJcen from the people. 
Bru. Mark you that ? [^lo Sicinitts. 

CoE. To brag unto them — thus I did, and thus — 

Show them th' unaching scars which I should hide. 

As if I had received them for the hire 

Of their breath only. 

Beu. You see how he intends to use the people. 

Sic. May they perceive 's intent ! He will require them. 

As if he did contemn what he requested 

Should be in them to give. 
Beu. Come ; we'll inform them 

Of our proceedings here : on the market-place. \_jExeunt. 

Act II. Scene 3. — The MarJcet-place. Citizens assembled. 

Enter Coeiolanus and Menenitjs. 

3 Citizen. Here he comes, and in the gown of humility ; mark his beha- 
viour. We are not to stay all together, but to come by him where he stands, 
by ones, by twos, and by threes. He's to make his requests by particulars : 
Avherein every one of us has a single honour, in giving him our own voices 
with our own tongues ; therefore follow me, and I'll direct you how you shall 
go by him. 

All. Content, content. \_Exeunt. 

Men. O sir, you are not right : have you not known 

The worthiest men have done't ? 
CoE. What must I say ? 

I pray sir, — Plague upon't ! I cannot bring 
My tongue to such a pace. 

* * # 



" Coriolanus." 305 

Men. You'll mar all ; 

I'll leave you : Pray you, speak to them, I pray you 

In wholesale manner. 
CoE. Bid them wash their faces, 

And keep their teeth clean. 

The haughty candidate then^ under the pressure of Menenius, 
makes a satirical application to the people for their sufFrag-es, 
which is so evidently insincere — nay, so contemptuous — that the 
citizens detect its tone. Nevertheless, under the awe of his pre- 
sence, they give him their voices ; whereupon, stripping himself 
rapidly and impatiently of his suppliant robes, he passes to 
the Senate-house to receive the more congenial aristocratic 
honours. 

Upon further reflection, however, the citizens perceive he has 
only deceived and mocked them ; so at the instigation of the 
tribunes, who suggest he has not yet been confirmed, they re- 
solve he shall reappear in the market-place, and be obliged to 
undergo an honest ordeal. 

The third act opens under this state of things ; but " Corio- 
lanus,'''' having got along more easily with the Senate, appears 
as Consul, and, in that capacity, receives the news that the 
Volsces have again broken out in war. In the midst of this 
discussion, the tribunes Sicinius and Brutus enter, fresh from 
the discontented people. 

CoE. Behold ! these are the tribunes of the people. 

TJie tongues o' the common msutJi. I do despise them ; 
For they do prank them in authority, 
Against all nohle sufferance. 

The tribunes, nevertheless, insist he shall again go to the 
market-place and apologize to The People. 

CoE. Are tliese your herd ? 

Must these have voices, that can yield them now, 

And straight disclaim their tongues .P What are your offices ? 

You being their mouths, why rule you not their teeth ? 

Have you not set them on ? 
Men. Be calm, he calm. 

CoE. It is a purposed thing, and grows by plot. 

To curh the will of the nohility : 

Suffer it, and live with such as cannot rule, 

Nor ever will be ruled. 
Beu, Cairt not a plot : 

The people crj, you mock'd them ; and, of late, 



5o6 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View, 

When corn was given them gratis, you repined ; 
Scandal'd the suppliants for the people ; call'd them 
Time-pleasers, flatterers, foes to nobleness. 

CoE. My nobler friends, 

I crave their pardons : 

For the mutable, ranJc-scenfed many, let them 
Regard me as T do not flatter, and 
Therein behold themselves : I say again. 
In soothing them, we nourish 'gainst our Senate 
The cockle of rebellion, insolence, sedition, 
Which we ourselves have plough'd for, sow'd and scatter'd, 
By mingling them with us, the honour'd number ; 
Who lack not virtue, no, nor power, but that 
Which they have given to beggars. 

# * * 

Betj. You sjpeah o' the feoj^le 

As if you loere a god to punish, not 

A man of their infirmity. 
Sic. 'Twere well, 

We let the people know't. 
Men. What, what ! his choler ! 

CoE. Choler! 

Were I as patient as the midnight sleep. 

By Jove, 'twould be my mind. 
Sic. It is a mind, 

That shall remain a poison where it is, 

Not poison any fui-ther. 
CoE. Shall remain ! — 

Hear you this Triton of the minnows ? mark yon 

His absolute shall ? 

# * * 

Betj. He has said enough. 

Sic. lie has spoken like a traitor, and shall answer 

As traitors do. 
CoE. Thou wretch ! despite o'erwhelm thee ! — 

What should the people do with these bald tribunes ? 

On whom depending, their obedience ftiils 

To the greater bench : In a rebellion, 

Then what's not meet, but what must he, was law. 

Then were they chosen ; in a better hour, 

Let what is meet, be said, it must be meet, 

And throw their power i' the dust. 
Betj. Manifest treason. 
Sic. This a consul ? no. 

Beu. The ^dlles, ho !— Let him be apprehended. 
Sic. Go, call the people ; [_Exit Bsutus] in whose name, myself 



" Coriolamis." 307 

Attach thee, as a traitorous innovator, 

A foe to the public weal : Obey, I charge thee, 

And follow to thine answer. 

Coriolanus draws his sword ; a tumult follows^ in whicli the 
people are driven in. 

CoMiNius {to CoEiOLANUs). Will jou hence, 

Before the tag return ? whose rage doth rend 

Like interrupted waters, and o'erbear 

What they are used to bear. 
Men. Pray you, be gone : 

I'll try whether my old wit be in request 

With those that have but little ; this must be patch'd 

With cloth of any colour. 
Com. Nay, come away. 

\JExeunt Coeiolanus, Cominitjs, and others. 
1 Pat. This man has marr'd his fortune. 

* * * 

Re-enter Bexitus and SiciNius, loith the rabble. 
Sic. Where is this viper, 

That would depopulate the city, 

Be everj'- man himself .f* 
Men. You worthy tribunes, — 

Sic, He shall be thrown down the Tarpeian rock 

With rigorous hands ; he hath resisted law, 

And therefore law shall scorn him further trial 

Than the severity of the public power. 

Which he so sets at nought. 

# * * 

Beu. We'll hear no more : — 

Pursue him to his house, and pluck him thence ; 
Lest his infection, being of catching nature, 
Spread further. 

Scene 2. — A Boom in Coeiolanus' House. 
JEnter Coeiolanus and Patricians. 
CoE. Let them pull all about mine ears ; present me 
Death on the wheel, or at wild horses' heels ; 
Or pile ten hills on the Tarpeian rock, 
That the precipitation might down stretch 
Below the beam of sight, yet will I still 
Be thus to them. 

Enter Volumnia. 
1 Pat. You do the nobler. 

CoE. I muse, my mother 

Does not approve me further, who was wont 
To call them xvoollen vassals, things created 



3o8 Shakespeare, fro7n an Americaji Point of Viezv. 

To buy and sell with groats ; to show bare heads 

In congregations, to yawn, be still, and wonder, 

When one but of my ordinance stood up 

To speak of peace, or war. I talk of you ; \To Volum. 

Why did you wish me milder ? Would you have me 

False to my nature ? Eather say, I play 

The man I am. 
Vol. O, sir, sir, sir, 

I would have had you put your power well on, 

Before you had worn it out, 
CoE. Let go. 

Vol. You might have been enough the man you are, 

With striving less to be so : lesser had been 

The thwartings of your dispositions, if 

You had not show'd them how you were disposed. 

Ere they lack'd power to cross you. 

* * You are too absolute ; 
Though therein you can never be too noble, 

But when extremities speak. I have heard you say, 
Honour and policy, like unsever'd friends, 
I' the war do grow together : grant that, and tell me. 
In peace what each of them by th' other lose. 
That they combine not there ? 

* * I pr'ythee now, my son. 
Go to them, with this bonnet in thy hand; 

And thus far having stretch'd it (here be with them,) 
Thy knee bussing the stones (for in such business 
Action is eloquence, and the eyes of the ignorant. 
More learned than their ears), waving thy head. 
Which often, thus, correcting thy stout heart. 
That hiimble, as the ripest mulberry, 
Now will not hold the handling : Or, say to them, 
Thou art their soldier, and being bred in broils, 
Hast not the soft way, which, thou dost confess. 
Were fit for thee to use, as they to claim. 
In asking their good loves ; hut thou loilt frame 
Thy self, forsooth, hereafter theirs, so far 
As thou hast fower, and person. 

Here is a repetition of the same royal principle of perfidy 
practised by Prince John of Lancaster (with the approbation of 
our author)^ against the army of the Archbishop of York, Mow- 
bray, and Hastings, in the Second Part of " King Henry JN ,-," 
the Prince putting the forces of these leaders mercilessly to the 
sword, after having persuaded them to lay down their arms upon 
terms, and a full pardon, secured by his princely honour : — a like 
perfidy to that perpetrated against the forces of Wat Tyler and 



^^ Coriolamis." 309 

Jack Cade (also with the approbation of the poet) after they had 
been induced to disband^ on the most solemn promises of amnesty 
from the King*. 

The haughty office-seeker, Coriolanus, at length pursues his 
mother^s perfidious advice, but his arrogant, unbridled nature 
giving way under it, he again rails at the people, who, unable to 
endure his insolence any longer, mercifully banish him. He then 
thus curses and takes leave of them : — 

Cob. You common cry of curs ! whose breath I hate 
As reek o' the rotten fens, whose loves I prize 
As the dead carcases of unburied men 
That do corrupt my air, I banish yoio. 

Thereupon, he at once goes over to the Volscians, betrays to 
them the secrets of his country, and, out of mere personal spite 
and revenge, leads the armies of the enemy against E/Ome, in 
which estimable attitude he is always vociferously applauded by 
American audiences. 

His arms are successful, and he Is only dissuaded from putting 
his native city to the sword, by the intercession of his mother, 
wife, and child. 

For thus disappointing the Volscians of their expected spoil, 
however, he is conspired against by their leaders, and slain. The 
worst feature of the play is, so far as Shakespeare is concerned, 
that the patriotic Roman citizens who had justly banished him 
for his treasons to The People, are made to tremble with cowardice 
at finding him return as an invader ; and in that state of wretched 
fear, to confess that they did him wrong, in resenting his 
encroachments on their liberties. 

Act IV. Scene 6. 

Men, {to the Tribunes). You have made good work, 

Yott, and your apron men ; you that stood so much 

Upon the voice of occupation, and 

The breath of garlic-eaters ! 
Com. He will shake 

Your Eome about your ears. 

Enter a Troop of Citizens. 

Men. JSere comes the clusters — 

And is Aufidius with him ! — You are they 
That made the air unwholesome, when you cast 
Your stinking, greasy caps, in hooting at 
Coriolanus* exile. Now, he's coming ; 
21 



o Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 



And not a Lair upon a soldier's head, 
Which will not prove a whip ; as many coxcombs, 
As you threw caps up, will he tumble down, 
And pay you for your voices. 'Tis no matter ; 
If he could burn us all into one coal, 
"We have deserved it. 
CiT. Taith, we hear fearful news, 

1 CiT. Tor mine own part. 

When I said, banish him, I said, 'twas pity. 

2 CiT. And so did I. 

3 CiT. And so did I ; and, to say the truth, so did very many of us : 
That we did, we did for the best ; and that though we willingly consented to 
his banishment, yet it was against our will. 

Com. 'You are goodly things, you voices ! 

Men. You have made good work, you and your cry ! 

It may be urged^ iu partial relief of the hard and revengeful 
nature of Coriolanus, that he finally spared Rome at the appeal 
of his mother ; but it will be seen that he was moved rather by 
a selfish dread of everlasting infamy^ than by her appeals^ or any 
better motive. 

VoLUMNiA. Thou know'st, great son, 

The end of war's uncertain ; but this certain. 
That, if thou conquer Eome, the benefit 
Which thou shalt thereby reap is such a name, 
Whose repetition will be dogg'd with curses : 
Whose chronicle thus writ, — The man was noble, 
Sut %mth his last attempt he wiped it out ; 
Destroy' d his country ; and his name remains 
To the ensuing time, abhorr'd. 

Just previous to this we had heard him say to Aufidius, the 
Volseian General : — 

For I will fight 
Against my canker'd country with the spleen 
Of all the under fiends. 

Andj right afterward^ again to the Volseian commander : — 

I'll not to Eome, I'll back with you ; and pray you, 

Stand me in this cause. {^Pointing to his another and his ivifeJ] 

There certainly could have been no better destiny in reserve 
for this bad man, than to be hacked to death, as he was, by the 
swords of those for whom he had betrayed his country. 

There may be some to ask mercy for his memory, because of 
his bravery in battle; but that was a mere gladiatorial instinct; 
and others may palliate his brutal nature by reference to the 



*^ Coriolanus^ 311 

savage teacliing-s of liis dam_, who more than matched his vulgar 
curse of — 

CoE. The fires of tlie lowest hell fold in the people ! 
with — 

Vol. Now, the red pestilence strike all the trades in Eome ! 
This sort of teaching, it is true, accounts for much of his per- 
verted disposition, but it does not make bad deeds good, nor 
justify his enthroning in his heart the selfish passion of personal 
revenge above all the natural impulses, all the obligations of 
patriotism, all the duties of friendship, and even the ties of 
nature. Nor does it warrant — ■ 

CoEiOLANUS. Do not bid me 

Dismiss my soldiers, or capitulate 
Again with Home's mechanics ! 

In this play, and in its encouragement of the aristocratic 
characteristics of Coriolanus, presenting them always, as the 
author does, for the auditor^s applause, the Baconians may find a 
plausible argument towards their theory ; for I must once more 
repeat, it seems incredible that William Shakespeare, who was 
born among the working classes — his father having been a dealer 
in wool, and, for a time, a trader in butchers'* meat — should 
speak with such invariable and bitter scorn of mechanics, 
labourers, and tradesmen, especially in deriding the latter with 
his favourite epithet of '^woolen slaves"'' as the token of his 
most extreme contempt. From Sir Francis Bacon, such scorn of 
trade and labour would not have been noticeably strange ; but, 
even from him, we find it puzzling that such contempt for the 
producing classes — who, certainly, are the source of all the 
luxuries of the rich — should have reached the point of loathing. 
But, whether the author of these plays was Sir Francis Bacon or 
William Shakespeare, we always find him treating the working 
man, whether of England, France, Italy, Bohemia, or Fairy 

" This epithet, and Shakespeare's frequent allusions to the " greasy caps " 
and " woolen caps " of the multitude, doubtless had reference to the habit of 
dress imposed upon the lower classes in England, by Act of Parliament, in 
the fifteenth century, to wear woolen caps of a specified pattern, so that they 
might not be able to confound themselves, under any circumstances, with the 
gentry. Eosalind, in " Love's Labour's Lost," alludes to this practice in the 
satirical line, " Well, better wits have worn plain statute caps." The Roman 
mechanics and lower classes also wore caps. The patricians and higher classes 
went with the head uncovered. — G. W. 



312 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

Land, with unvarying* detestation. If Lord Bacon was the 
author of the Shakespeare plays, the least we can say of him in 
this connexion is, that he was a hard, arrogant, proud-hearted, 
ungenerous, and brutal noble ; if William Shakespeare, the 
wool-dealer's son, then he was a base, cringing parasite, devoid 
of all the estimable sympathies of parentage and class, and the 
veriest pander of all poets, to the really inferior conditions of 
wealth and worldly station. He has taken the ' god which was 
born in his bosom for noble purposes, subjugated it to his animal 
supremacy, and thrust its celestial head under the mire. He 
cannot be excused on the score of the habits and prejudices of 
his period. Mortals of all times, who have been commissioned 
with poetic fire, have held it in noble trust, for the elevation of 
the people, but Shakespeare seems to have employed his genius 
mainly to tread upon the unfortunate of the human race. 



LEGAL ACQUIREMENTS OF SHAKESPEATIE. 

'' In this drama, in which,'' says Lord Campbell, " we should 
not expect to find any allusion to English juridical proceedings, 
Shakespeare shows that he must have been present before some 
tiresome, testy, choleric judges at Stratford, Warwick, or West- 
minster — whom he evidently intends to depict and satirize — like 
my distinguished friend Charles Dickens, in his famous report 
of the trial Bardel v. Pickwick, before Mr. Justice Starey, for 
breach of promise of marriage. Menenius (Act 11. Scene 1), in 
reproaching the two tribunes, Sicinius and Brutus, with their 
own offences, which they forget while they inveigh against 
Coriolanus, says, — 

You wear out a good wholesome forenoon in hearing a cause between an 
orange-wife and a posset-seller, and then re-journ the controversy of three 
pence to a second day of audience. When you are hearing a matter between 
party and jparty, if you chance to be pinched with the colic, you make faces 
like mummers, set up the bloody flag against all patience, and in roaring for 

a pot dismiss the controversy pleading more entangled by your hearing : 

all the peace you make in their cause is, calling both the parties knaves. 

" Shakespeare here mistakes the duties of the Tribune for those 
of the Prator ; but in truth he was recollecting with disgust 
what he had himself witnessed in his own country. Now-a-days 
all English judges are exemplary for despatch, patience, and good 
temper ! ! !'' 



^^ Titus Andronicusr 313 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

" TITUS ANDEONICUS/^ 

The tragedies of "Titus Andronieus ^' and of " Pericles ^^ are 
usually compiled among- tlie last of the Shakespearian dramas^ not 
that they are esteemed the most matured and worthy, but because 
it has been seriously doubted whether they are entitled to be 
classed among the works of the mind which produced " Hamlet/^ 
"^ Othello/^ " Macbeth/* and " Lear/-" Their position in the series, 
therefore, instead of being originally one of honour, was rather 
one of suspicion, which shrewdly allotted to them the last place 
in the early compilations, in order that they might be handily 
''^ switched off''^ in case the public voice should decide against 
them. The general judgment, however — stimulated, no doubt, 
to some extent, by the desire to cling to everything which might 
have come from Shakespeare — has left them in the list of his 
collected works. Instead, therefore, of being ranked among the 
last of our poet's productions, it is pretty generally agreed they 
ought to appear among his first. Moreover, it is largely be- 
lieved among critics that " Titus Andronicus ^' was his very first 
play; and that both that and Pericles were only his work in 
part. My idea is that, when Shakespeare, emerging from his 
position as a hanger-on at the play-houses, began to work as a 
producer for the stage, he tried his hand first at dramatic adap- 
tation, and finding some crude and unaccepted plays within his 
reach, he chose two or three which he deemed the best, and built 
upon them. 

"Titus Andronicus-'* and '''Pericles'-' may, therefore, be regarded 
as two youthful and inexperienced productions, partaking of all the 
errors of the school in which they had been formed, and which 
school our author's prestige and practice were not yet great 
enough to overturn. Plashes of power and strains of melody 
relieve, with frequency, the deformities of the original produe- 



314 Shakespeare, fro7n an American Point of View. 

tions^ and as the striving poet breasted these vexed tides, guided 
alone by his reliant genius, he learned his masterful and all- 
commanding stroke. 

The trial table of Furnival declares " Titus Andronicus " to have 
been an old play, and fixes its date at 1588. This makes it the 
immediate successor of the poem of " Venus and Adonis.'''' Sir 
Francis Bacon, however, was nearly four years older than Shake- 
speare, and what might have been forgiven to our bard at the 
age of twenty-four, would hardly have been excusable in Bacon 
at twenty-eight ; or, indeed, to Shakespeare either, at the period 
of life when he wrote " Borneo and Juliet.''^ Moreover, Bacon 
must be credited with having achieved a greater literary maturity 
at the age of twenty-eight, than could have been acquired by 
Shakespeare at the same age, either from the latter^s oppor- 
tunities for study, or against the distracting obstacles rising 
from the seething ocean of London lower life. 

" Titus Andronicus ■" is an improbable and voluntary horror, 
conceived originally by some coarse and cruel mind, which took 
a perverted pleasure in laving itself in blood, and in familiarizing 
its auditors with a yearning for atrocity and murder. Titus, a 
Boman general, who combines the qualities of both Brutus and 
Virginius, returns to Borne after a brilliant series of battles, 
conveying with him, in the train of his captives, Tamora, the 
Queen of the Goths, and her three sons, Alarbus, Chiron, and 
Demetrius. Titus has been the father of twenty-five sons 
himself, twenty-one of whom have fallen in battle, and he brings, 
on this occasion, the dead body of the last of these. The four 
remaining sons accompany him in this triumph, and are by his 
side. One of these, Lucius, demands that "the proudest prisoner 
of the Goths^^ shall be hewed to pieces, as a sacrifice ad manes 
fratrum to his unburied brother, according to the Boman custom 
of the time ; whereupon Titus yields to them Tamora^s eldest 
son, Alarbus, for that purpose. During this campaign, the 
Emperor of Bome had died, and the -People, in gratitude for the 
services of Titus, desire to invest him with the vacant purple. 
The aged warrior, however, with a patriotic forbearance, rejects 
the temptation and decides in favour of the emperor's eldest son, 
Saturninus, and, at the same time, gives him the hand of 
Lavinia, his only daughter in marriage. Saturninus accepts both 
the empire and the girl, whereupon Bassianus, the emperor^s 



" Titus Andi^onicusy 315 

second son, claims Lavlnia as liis betrothed, and, drawing his 
sword, bears her off from the scene, supported by three of the 
sons of Titus. Mutius, the fourth son, also takes part with 
Bassianus, and attempts to bar the way of Titus from Lavinia's 
rescue. Upon this, the father, in a fit of ungovernable rage, 
kills Mutius on the spot, and then demands of his other sons 
the immediate restoration of Lavinia to the young emperor. 
Saturninus, however, having been suddenly smitten with the 
burning beauty of Tamora, rejects Lavinia, and takes the Gothic 
queen as substitute, — a choice which old Titus, still governed by 
his loyalty, sorrowfully consents to. In the second act, Titus 
gives a grand hunt to the new emperor and his court, during 
which revelry the two remaining sons of Tamora, at the instiga- 
tion of Aaron, a Moor, who is the paramour of their mother, 
murder Bassianus, and seize upon the person of Lavinia for 
themselves. Tamora, coming in, seconds this vile advice, and in 
her presence, and at her stimulation, the youths stab Bassianus, 
and cast him into a pit, which had been artfully prepared by 
Aaron for this purpose. Tamora then seeks to perform in like 
manner, with her dagger, upon Lavinia ; but her sons interfere, 
in order to carry out the more agreeable purpose previously 
suggested to them by Aaron. Tamora, after a moment^s 
thought, yields to the congenial wickedness of this suggestion, 
and despatches her offspring to the brutal task with — 

But M'hen ye liave the honey you desire, 
Let not this wasp outlive us both to sting. 

The sons follow this unnatural counsel, and then, by way of 
preventing Lavinia from becoming a witness against them, cut 
out her tongue that she may not expose them by speech, and 
next cut off her hands, that she may not betray them by 
writing. 

I think Shakespeare may be acquitted of the barbarity of this 
device, but he cannot be excused the error of adopting it ; and, 
to my mind, an author who takes advantage of the trust reposed 
in him by his audience, to wound their best feelings with 
unnecessary horrors, is nearly as bad as the characters who 
perpetrate them. A writer should reach his climax by tolerable 
steps, and he is not justified in exercising his art so as to cause 
us to love a beautiful ideal, merely that he may torture it in 



3i6 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

our presence^ any more tlian a boy lias a riglit to expect us to 
honour him for his dexterity in driving pins through flies. We 
can bear to see the beautiful Fantine cut off her golden tresses 
to feed the famishing Cosette^ but^ when she is made to part 
with the laughing glory of her mouth, by selling to the 
travelling dentist her two upper front teeth to obtain medicines 
for the suffering child, we can scarcely refrain from execrating 
Victor Hugo as a monster^ for such a wanton outrage on our 
sentiments, — a monstrosity which is rendered all the greater 
by the vast resources of his genius, and because he is enabled to 
perpetrate the horror only through a violation of our confidence. 
There is no good end to be attained by making human nature 
look worse than it is, and, in my opinion, the author who 
conjures up impossible crimes to torture the heart of his con- 
fiding listeners, is as bad as the real perpetrator of such cruelties 
himself. 

But the horrors of the second act of "Andronicus''^ do not finish 
with the rape and mutilation of Lavinia. The villain Aaron, 
who had suggested her violation to Chiron and Demetrius, decoj's 
two of the three remaining sons of Titus, Quintus and Martius, 
to the pit where Bassianus lies slain, with the view of searching 
it for game. The mouth of the pit being masked with boughs, 
Martius falls in, and Quintus having given his hand to extricate 
his brother, is pulled down into the hole along with him. 
Having them thus snared and fast (for the pit had been pre- 
arranged), Aaron brings in the emperor and train, and charges 
the two live brothers in the pit, with the murder of Bassianus, 
who lies dead at the bottom. Titus pleads in vain to be accepted 
as the surety for his sons until their trial can come on ; but the 
emperor refuses, and they are hurried off to prison. 

The monster Aaron next appears to old Titus, who is now half 
bereft of reason, pretending to bring a message from the emperor, 
to the effect, that if he, or his brother Marcus, or his last son 
Lucius, will, either of them, chop off a hand, Quintus and 
Martius shall be pardoned. There is a struggle, at once, between 
the two old men, and also between Lucius and the father, who 
shall make the sacrifice; but Titus succeeds in first getting his 
left hand to the sword of Aaron, who eagerly strikes it off, and 
carries it away. In a few minutes after, and before the scene is 
closed, a messenger enters, bearing the heads of Quintus and 



" Titus Andronicusy 317 

Martius, whicli had been so bloodily redeemed, and Titus' own 
still smoking hand. 

Messeis'gee. Worthy Andronicus, ill art thou repaid 

For that good hand thou sent'st the emperor, 

Here are the heads of thy two noble sons ; 

And here's thy hand, in scorn to thee sent back. 

Lucius, the last of Titus^ sons, upon this concludes that it is 
time for him to fly, and he escapes from Eome for the purpose 
of gathering an army among the Goths, to depose the emperor 
and redress his father's wrongs. 

In the next act, the perpetrators of the outrages upon Lavinia 
are revealed by the device of giving her a long staff, one end of 
which she puts into her mouth, and guiding the other end with 
her stumps, writes the names of Chiron and Demetrius in the 
sand ; thus showing that the author had unnecessarily cut out 
her tongue and chopped off her hands. Titus, upon this, becomes 
altogether mad, and in this state affronts the emperor with 
sardonic messages, for which he would have been put to death, 
but for the timely news that the raging Lucius is approaching 
Rome with a great army. This danger induces the emperor to 
temporize with Titus, and Tamora finally succeeds in persuading 
the distraught old man to entreat Lucius to come into the city, 
to agree upon a treaty and to share a feast. Titus, however, 
has sanity enough left to divine their purpose, and though he 
consents to the proposal, succeeds in securing the persons of 
Chiron and Demetrius in advance, and slays them in his own 
house, by cutting their throats over a bowl, which Lavinia holds 
between her stumps. Their bodies are then made into a pasty, 
upon which their mother is ignorantly made to feed during the 
repast that follows. After Tamora has surfeited herself upon 
the horrid dish, Titus informs her that she has been munching 
and digesting the bodies of her own sons. 

During the progress of the banquet (which is held in a 
pavilion open to the observation of the People and the troops), 
and just before this horrible revelation is made to Tamora, Titus 
mercifully stabs Lavinia, in the Virginius fashion. He next 
kills Tamora ; the emperor then kills him ; whereupon Lucius 
revenges his father by killing the emperor. This holocaust of 
murder finally winds up by the execution of the demon Aaron ; 
after which, Lucius takes tranquil possession of the throne. The 



3x8 Shakespeare^ from an American Point of Viezu. 

following- is the full scene of these closing horrors as taken from 
the text : — 

Act V, Scene 3. 

Enter Titus, dressed liTce a cooh. Laviistia veiled, young Lucitrs and 
other's. TiTtrs^jZace* the dishes on the table. 

Tit. Welcome, my gracious lord ; welcome dread queen ; 

Welcome, ye warlike Goths ; welcome Lucius ; 

And welcome, all : although the cheer be poor, 

'Twill fill your stomaclis ; please you eat of it. 
Sat. Why art thou thus attired, Andronicus ? 
Tit. Because I would be sure to have all well. 

To entertain your highness, and your empress. 
Tam. We are beholden to you, good Andronicus. 
Tit. And if your highness knew my heart, you were. 

My lord the emperor, resolve me this ; 

Was it well done of rash Yirginius, 

To slay his daughter with his own right hand. 

Because she was enforced, stain'd, and detlow'r'd? 
Sat. It was, Andronicus. 
Tit. Your reason, mighty lord ! 
Sat. Because the girl should not survive her shame. 

And by her presence still renew his sorrows. 
Tit. a reason mighty, strong, and effectual : 

A pattern, precedent, and lively warrant, 

For me, most wretched to perform the like ; — 

Die, die, Lavinia, and thy shame with thee ; [IZe I'ills Lavinia. 

And, with, thy sbame, thy father's sorrow die ! 
Sat. What hast thou done, unnatural and unkind.? 
Tit. Kill'd her, for whom my tears have made me blind. 

I was as woeful as Virginius was : 

And have a thousand times more cause than he 

To do this outrage ; — and it is now done. 
Sat. What, was she ravish'd.^^ tell, who did the deed. 
Tit. Wiirt please you eat .P will't please your highness feed ^ 
Tam. Why bast thou slain thine only daughter thus ? 
Tit. Not I ; 'twas Chii-on, and Demetrius : 

They ravisb'd her, and cut away her tongue, 

And they, 'twas they, that did her all this wrong. 
Sat. Go, fetch them hither to us presentl3^ 
Tit. Why, there they are both, baked in that pie ; 

Whereof tbeir mother daintily hath fed, 

Eating the flesh that she herself hath bred. 

'Tis true, 'tis true ; witness my knife's sharp point. 

[^Killing Tamoka. 
Sat. Die, frantic wretch, for this accursed deed. {Killing Titus. 



*' Tihis Andronicus." 319 

Luc. Can tlie son's eye behold his father bleed ? 

There's meed for meed, death for a deadly deed. 
[-ffi7^5 Satubninus. a great tumult. The people in confusion disperse. 
Maecus, Lucius, and their partisans ascend the steps before Titus' 
house.'] 

The mind of Shakespeare Is manifest in the above language, 
though with a less full, and evidently much less practised 
strength, than in any other of his dramatic works. 

Knight and Collier unhesitatingly ascribe the authorship of 
" Titus Andronicus" to Shakespeare ; Coleridge disputes the pre- 
sence of Shakespeare, except in certain passages, and Gervinius 
doubts its Shakespearian authenticity altogether, keenly observ- 
ing that, whatever may be the truth, amongst all this variety 
of opinion, " there are a few, who value Shakespeare, who 
would not wish to have it proved that this piece did not pro- 
ceed from our poet^s pen.'''' Further on, the same acute reasoner 
observes, — 

''The whole, indeed, sounds less like the early wor^ of a great 
genius" than the production of a mediocre mind, which in a certain 
self-satisfied security felt itself already at its apex. But that 
which, in our opinion, decides against its Shakespearian author- 
ship is the coarseness of the characterization, the lack of the most 
ordinary probability in the actions, and the unnatural motives 
assigned to them. ^\\Qsf^le of a young writer may be perverted, 
and his taste almost necessarily at first goes astray; but that 
which lies deeper than all this exterior and ornament of art — 
namely, the estimate of man, the deduction of motives of action, 
and the general contemplation of human nature — this is the 
power of an innate talent, which, under the guidance of sound 
instinct, is usually developed at an early stage of life. Whatever 
piece of Shakespeare^s we regard as his first, everywhere, even in 
his narratives, the characters are delineated with a firm hand — 
the lines may be weak and faint, but nowhere are they drawn, as 
here, with a harsh and distorted touch. And besides, Shakespeare 
ever knew how to devise the most natural motives for the 
strangest actions in the traditions which he undertook to drama- 
tize, and this even in his earliest plays ; but nowhere has he 
grounded, as in this piece, the story of his play upon the most 

apparent improbability He who compares the most 

wicked of all the characters which Shakespeare depicted with this 



320 Shakespeare^ from an American Point of View. 

Aaron, who cursed ' tlie day in wbicli he did not some notorious 
ill/ will feel that in the one some remnant of humanity is 
ever preserved, while in the other a ' ravenous tiger ' commits 
unnatural deeds and speaks unnatural language/^ ^ 
J Act V. Scene 1. 
Aaeon. An if it please thee ? wliy, assure thee, Lucius, 

'Twill vex thy soul to hear what I shall speak ; 

For I must talk of murders, rapes, and massacres, 

Acts of black night, abominable deeds, 

Complots of mischief, treason ; villanies 

Euthful to hear, yet piteously perform'd ; 

^ TP •?(• 

This was but a deed of charity. 
To that which thou shalt hear of me anon. 
'Twas her two sons, that raurder'd Bassianus ; 
They cut thy sister's tongue, and ravish'd her. 
And cut her hands; and trimm'd her as thou saw'st. 
* # * 

Well, let my deeds be witness of my worth. 
I train'd thy brethren to that guileful hole, 
Where the dead corpse of Bassianus lay : 
I wrote the letter that thy father found. 
And hid the gold within the letter mention'd. 
Confederate with the queen, and her two sons ; 
And what not done, that thou hast cause to rue, 
Wherein I had no stroke of mischief in it .? 
I play'd the cheater for thy father's hand ; 
And, when I had it, drew myself apart. 
And almost broke my heart with extreme laughter. 
I pry'd me through the crevice of a wall. 
When, for his hand, he had his two sons' heads ; 
Beheld his tears, and laugh'd so heartily. 

That both mine eyes were rainy like to his. 

•^ ^ ^ 

^ w w 

Luc. Art thou not sorry for these heinous deeds ? 

Aab, Ay, that I had not done a thousand moi-e. 

Even now I curse the day (and yet, I think, 

Few come within the compass of my curse), 

Wherein I did not some notorious ill : 

As kill a man, or else devise his death ; 

Eavish a maid, or plot the way to do it ; 

Accuse some innocent, and forswear myself: 

Set deadly enmity between two friends ; 

Make poor men's cattle break their necks ; 

Set fire on barns and hay-stacks in the night, 

And bid the owners qiiench them with their tears. 



'' Tihis Andronzctcsy 321 

The point whicli we derive from this steaming vat of bloody 
horror, incongruity, and incredible consequence, is, that such a 
treatise could not have been conjured as a picture of possible 
human events from the cool, philosophic, exact, and rational 
mind of Sir Francis Bacon. He was a man of method, of 
reason, of logic, and of tranquil development, and he could no 
more have thought out, or have countenanced such absurd 
monstrosities, than Newton could have conceived Barbarossa, 
or Des Cartes have written Bombastes Furioso. Shakespeare 
undoubtedly was the man who adapted and produced this 
play, and in this connexion, I have only to add the remark of 
Doctor Johnson, while discussing the authenticity of another 
disputed performance of our author, to wit, that if the lines 
attributed to him in " Titus Andronicus " be not his, what other 
man of his time could possibly have written them ? 

There are but one or two other points in the text which I 
desire to call attention to, as bearing upon the Baconian theory, 
and as touching (though but slightly) the question of Shake- 
speare^s unremitting contempt for the masses of the People. As 
I have been extreme in my declarations upon this point, T desire 
to submit to the reader every line I find, which seems, even in 
the remotest degree, to support argument on the other side. If 
there are any not noticed in these chapters, it is because they 
have escaped my observation. 



Oft have I digg'd up dead men from their graves, 
And set them upright at their dear friends' doors, 
Even when their sorrows almost wci-e forgot ; 
And on their skins, as on the bark of trees, 
Have with my knife carved in Eoman letters, 
Let not your sorrows die, though I am dead. 
Tut, I have done a thousand dreadful things. 
As willingly as one would kill a fly ; 
And nothing grieves me heartily, indeed. 
But that I cannot do ten thousand more. 

Ltjc. Bring down the devil; for. he must not die 
So sweet a death, as hanging presently. 

Aae. If there be devils, 'would I were a devil, 
To live and burn in everlasting fire ; 
So I might have your company in hell. 
But to torment you with my bitter tongue ! 

Lttc. Sirs, stop his mouth, and let him speak no more. 



322 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View, 

The first illustration in tlie premises occurs in Act V. Scene 3, 
immediately after the wholesale killing- of Lavinia, Tamora, 
Titus, and Saturninus has taken place. 

A great tumult is the immediate result. The crowd, consist- 
ing of people of all ranks of society, separate in great confu- 
sion, or, to use the explanatory language at the head of the 
scene, " the people disperse in terror.''^ To the numbers which 
remain, and which consist mostly of patricians, senators, and 
men of rank, Marcus, the brother of Titus Andronicus, thus 
speaks in the interest of Lucius' elevation to the throne : — ' 

Maecus. You sad-faced men, people, and sons of Eome, 
By uproar sever 'd like a flight of fowl, 
Scatter'd by winds and high tempestuous gusts, 
O ! let me teach you how to knit again 
This scatter'd corn into one mutual sheaf, 
These broken limbs again into one body. 

His speech is favourably responded to by a Eoman lord, 
whereupon Lucius, after a little more aristocratic pressure, 
modestly accepts : — 

Lucius. Thanks, gentle Romans : may I govern so. 

To heal Rome's harms and wipe away her woe ! 
But, gentle people, give me aim awhile. 

It will be observed, however, that these speeches to "the 
People " and " sons of Rome " are addressed to them by politi- 
cians, who are beseeching their common suffrages for a kingly 
crown. 

I place no importance upon the above extracts as a diversion 
of the argument, but I give them rather as a curiosity, in 
that, they are the very first instances, in the twenty-nine plays 
I have thus far reviewed, in which Shakespeare has allowed 
himself to allude to the People without some voluntary term of 
disrespect. 



'PERICLES, PRINCE OE TYRE. 



This play contributes little, if anything, to our special inquiries; 
and only demands a mere mention as we pass along. It is classed 
with " Titus Andronicus " by the commentators, as being of very 
doubtful authenticity, all of them rating it as one of our poef s 



" Pericles, Prince of Tyre!' 



0^0 



earliest performances, Dryden placing it as his very first. 
Knight says, that the first edition of " Pericles ^^ appeared in 
1609j under the title of " The late and much-admired play called 
Pericles, Prince of Tyre, with the true relation of the whole 
historic adventures and fortunes of the said prince, and also the 
no less strange and worthy accidents in the birth and life of his 
daughter, Marina ; as it hath been divers and sundry times acted 
by his Majestie^s servants at the Globe, on the Bank side. By 
William Shakespeare/^ 

The story was of very great antiquity, having appeared in the 
Gesta Romanoriim five hundred years ago, and was first done into 
English by an author named Gower, in 1554. From Gower's 
poem the play was probably constructed, the author of it, who- 
ever he was, welding together its incongruities of time and 
scene, by using old Gower as a Chorus, after the Shakespearian 
fashion. Gower is, in this way, introduced at the commencement 
of every act and even in the course of an act, with some of the 
weakest doggerel rhymes that can be conceived of, hardly one of 
which can be reasonably attributed to Shakespeare; unless, 
indeed, he was imitating that mode of the familiar narrative 
rhyme of the time. Nearly all the critics are against the authen- 
ticity of " Pericles ; ^^ but I find expressions in it — nay, whole 
scenes, which cannot, in my judgment, be attributed to any 
other hand than that of our poet. I should decide the following 
two lines to be Shakespeare^'s : — 

Kings are earth's gods : in vice their law's their will ; 

And if Jove stray, who dare say Jove doth ill. — Act I. Scene 1. 

Also, the lines of Pericles to Marina : — 

Yet dost thou look 
Like Patience gazing on king's graves, and smiling 
Extremity out of act. 

Which reminds us of his previous expression in " The Twelfth 
Night : "— 

She sat like Patience on a monument 
Smiling at grief. 

I should also adopt, as genuine, the scene between Pericles 
and the fishermen, in the second act ; also the scene between 
Boult and the bawd in the fourth Act, and, certainly, the 
following from the third act : — 



324 Shakespeare, from an American Point of Vieiv. 

Act III. Scene 1. 
Enter Peeicles, on a sJiip at sea. 

Pee. Thou God of tliis great vast, rebuke these surges, 

Which wash both heaven and hell ; and tbou, that bast 

Upon the winds command, bind tbem in brass. 

Having call'd tbem from the deep ! O, still tby deaf'ning, 

Thy dreadful thunders ; gently quench thy nimble, 

Sulphurous flashes ! — how, Ljchorida, 

How does my queen P — Thou storm, thou ! venomously 

Wilt thou spit all thyself.? — The seaman's whistle 

Is as a whisper in the ears of death, 

Unheard. — Lychorida ! — Lucina, O 

Divinest patroness, and midwife, gentle 

To those that cry by night, convey thy deity 

Aboard our dancing boat ; make swift the pangs 

Of my queen's travails !— Now, Lychorida 

Enter Lychoeida, luith an infant. 

Ltc. Here is a thing 

Too young for such a place, who, if it had 

Conceit, would die as I am like to do. 

Take in your arms this piece of your dead queen. 

Pee. How ! how, Lychorida ! 

Lyc, Patience, good sir ; do not assist the storm,^ 
Here's all that is left living of your queen^ — 
A little daughter ; for the sake of it, 
Be manly, and take comfort, 

* # # 

Pee. Now, mild may be thy life ! 

For a more blust'rous birth had never babe : 

Quiet and gentle thy conditions ! 

For thou'rt the rudeliest welcomed to this world, 

That e'er was prince's child. Happy what follows ! 

Thou hast as chiding a nativity. 

As fire, air, water, earth, and heaven can make, 

To herald thee from the womb : even at the first, 

Thy loss is more than can thy portage quit, 

With all thou canst find here. Now the good gods 

Throw their best eyes upon it ! 

Enter tioo Sailors. 
1 Sail. What courage, sir ? God save you. 
Pee. Courage enough : I do not fear the flaw ; 

It hath done to me the worst. Yet, for the love 

Of this poor infant, this fresh-new sea-farer, 

I would it would be quiet. 



You do assist the storm. — " Tempest," Act I. Scene 1. 



" Pericles, Prince of Tyre. " 325 

1 Sail. Slack tlie bolins there ; tliou wilt not, wilt thou? Blow and split 
thyself.-'' 

2 Sail. But sea-room, an' the brine and cloudy billow kiss the moon, I 
care not, 

1 Sail. Sir, your queen must overboard ; the sea works high, the wind is 
loud, and will not lie till the ship be cleared of the dead. 
Pee. That's your superstition. 

1 Sail. Pardon us, sir ; with us at sea it still hath been observed ; and we 
are (running) strong astern. Therefore briefly yield her ; for she must over- 
board straight. 

Pee. Be it as you think meet. Most wretched queen ! 
Lyc. Here she lies, sir. 

Pee. a terrible child-bed hast thou had, my dear ; 
No light, no fire : the unfriendly elements 
Forgot thee utterly ; nor have I time 
To give thee hallow'd to thy grave, but straight 
Must, cast thee, scarcely coffin'd, in the ooze ; 
Where, for a monument upon thy bones. 
And aye-remaining lamps, the belching whale 
And humming water must o'erwhelm thy corpse, 
Lying with simple shells. 

In my judgment^ only Shakespeare could have written these 
last nine lines. 

GerviniuSj in commenting upon this play, says, " We should 
therefore, prefer to assume that Shakespeare appropriated the 
piece soon after its origin, about 1590, At the time that the 
play was printed with Shakespeare^s name, in 1602, it may, per- 
haps, have been re-prepared for Burbage^s acting, and through 
this it may have acquired its new fame. That at that time it 
excited fresh sensation is evident from the fact that the perform- 
ance of the piece gave rise to a novel, composed in 1608, by 
George Wilkens, entitled ^The true history of the play of 
Pericles, as it was lately represented by the worthy and ancient 
poet, John Gower.^ In this publication we read the Iambic 
verses and passages of the piece transposed into prose, but in a 
manner which allows us to infer that the play, at that time was 
reprinted in a more perfect form than that in which we now read 
it. Shakespeare's pen — so easily is it to be distinguished — ^is 
recognized in this prose version in expressions, which are not to 
be found in the drama, but which must have been used upon the 

3 Blow till thou burst thy wind, if room enough. — " Tempest," Act I. 
Scene 1. 

22 



^26 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

stage. When Pericles (Act III. Scene 1) receives the child 
born in the tempest, he says to it^ — 

Tliou'rt the rudeliest welcomed to this world 
That e'er was prince's child. 

To this the novel adds the epithet, — 

Poor inch of nature. 

Merely four words, in which every reader must recognize our 
poet. We, therefore, probably read this drama now, in a form 
which it neither bore when Shakespeare put his hand to it for 
the first, nor for the last time.^^ * 

With this recognition of Shakespeare, in the above four lines, 
I heartily agree, for no such flower could have blossomed from 
any other stock. 

* " Shakespeare's Commeutavies," by Gervinius, pp. Ill, 112. Scribner's 
Edition, N. Y. 



''Macbeth:' 327 



CHAPTER XXXII. 

" MACBETH." 

It requires from a reviewer the exercise of great self-restraint) 
when passing- through the intellectual splendours of such a com- 
position as " JMacbeth/"" to withstand the temptation to dwell 
upon its glories, while travelling along the comparatively narrow 
line of an allotted path ; nevertheless there is but one true way 
to perform a duty, and that is to adhere strictly to the boundaries 
set for ourselves at the beginning, and not be drawn aside by 
allurements which may be yielded to only by the general critic. 
It need not surprise the reader, therefore, if this great pro- 
duction of our poet, which is suggestive of such command- 
ing thoughts, should contribute so little to the scope of our 
review. 

Mr. Thomas Kenny, who has written most ably on the sub- 
ject of "Macbeth,"^ characterizes it as "a drama of gigantic 
crime and terror, relieved by the most magnificent imaginative 
expression,-'^ yet marked with great simplicity of general design. 
The date of the production of the piece is set by Furnival at 
1605-6; and '' we may take it for granted,-*' says Kenny, "that 
it was written in the time of James I., who ascended the throne 
March, 1603, as it contains an evident allusion to that monarch 
in Act IV. Scene 1, and also a complimentary reference to him 
in another part. The material for the play was found by Shake- 
speare in Holinshed's ' History of Scotland,-* where the story of 
Macbeth is told, at page 168." There, Macbeth and Duncan are 
represented to have been cousins ; the first a valiant gentleman, 
but of a cruel disposition, and the latter " so soft and gentle in 
his nature that the people wished the inclinations and manners 
of the two to have been so tempered and interchangeably shared 

1 "The Life and Genius of Shakespeare," by Thomas Kenny. Longman 
and Co., London, 1864. 



328 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

betwixt them, that where the oue had too much of clemency, and 
the other of cruelty, the main virtue betwixt these two extremities 
might have reigned by indifferent partition in them both/-' Some 
light is afforded as to the date in which this tragedy is laid, by 
James Logan's magnificently illustrated folio on the " Clans of 
the Scottish Highlands,'^ in which it is stated that Macduff 
overcame Macbeth in 1056. See vol. i. (published by Willis 
and Sothern, 136, Strand, London). The play all along keeps 
close to the line of Holinshed, varying from it in scarcely any 
main particular, except in the non-appearance, in the banquet- 
scene, of the murdered Banquo's ghost. In treating of the 
second act, Kenny says, " There is in the literature of all ages 
no scene of pure natural terror so true, so vivid, so startling, as 
the murder of Duncan, with all its wonderful accompaniments. 
Through the magic art of the poet we lose our detestation of the 
guilty authors of the deed, in the absorbing sympathy with which 
we share their breathless disquietude. '^ 

The first illustration I find in the text exhibiting the tendency 
of Shakespeare's mind for almost religious homage to the sacred 
person of a king, occurs in Act II. Scene 3, on the discovery 
of Duncan's murder : — 

Mac. Confusion now hatli made Ms masterpiece ! 
Most sacriligious murder hath broke ope 
The Lord's anointed temple, and stolen thence 
The life 0' the building. 

The next illustration comes in the incantation scene in the 
fourth act, and it may be taken as an evidence of the Catholic 
bitterness of our poet against the crucifiers of the Saviour. Among 
the most fell ingredients of the cauldron which the Third Witch 
contributes to the hell-broth is — 

Liver of blaspheming Jew. 

Next to this comes the following ascription of supernatural 
and almost godlike powers to a kingly ancestor of James IL, in 
being able, by a mere touch of his anointed hand, to cure the 
terrible disease known as the king's evil. In this homage, how- 
ever, it must be admitted that our poet shared his superstition 
with the public ; but a mind like Shakespeare's might well have 
been superior to such blind belief. 



♦ ''Macbeth:' 329 

Act IV. Scene 3. 
England. — A Boom in tlie English King's Palace. Present — Malcolm 

and Macduff. 
Enter a Doctor. 
Mal. {to Doctor). Comes the king forth, I pray you ? 
DocT. Ay, sir, there are a crew of wretched souls, 

That stay his cure : their malady convinces 

The great assay of art ; but, at his touch, 

Such sanctity hath heaven given his hand, 

They presently amend. 
Mal. I thank you, doctor. \_Exit DoCTOE. 

Macd. What's the disease he means ? 
Mal. 'Tis call'd the evil : 

A most miraculous work in this good king : 

Which often, since my here-remain in England, 

I have seen him do. How he solicits heaven. 

Himself best knows : but strangely-visited people, 

All swoln and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye, 

The mere despair of surgery, he cures ; 

Hanging a golden stamp about their necks,* 

Put on with holy prayers : and 'tis spoken, 

To the succeeding royalty he leaves 

The healing benediction. With this strange virtue, 

He hath a heavenly gift of prophecy ; 

And sundry blessings hang about his throne, 

That speak him full of grace. ^ 

It is said by Davenant that^ in recognition of this fulsome 
compliment, King James sent Shakespeare a letter of acknow- 

2 The image was, doubtless, suggested to the poet's mind by the little cus- 
tomary Catholic medal which he, in common with all true believers, doubtless 
wore about his neck. 

3 The superstition of touching for king's evil continued down to the time 
of George III., and Dr. Johnson tells us that he himself was touched for the 
evil by Queen Anne. He was quite a child at the time, but remembered her 
Majesty as being a solemn-looking lady wearing a black silk gown and 
diamonds. His mother, who carried him to London to be touched, had acted 
on the advice of the celebrated Sir John Flojn, a physician of Lichfield. — 
Boswell's " Life of Johnson," vol. i. p. 25. 

In the London Gazette, No. 2180, appears this advertisement : — " White- 
hall, Oct. 8, 1683. His Majesty has graciously appointed to heal for the evil 
upon Frydays, and has commanded his physicians and chirugeans to attend 
at the oflSce approved by the prayers in the Meuse, upon Thursdays, in the 
afternoon and to give out tickets." On March 30, 1712, Queen Anne touched 
200 persons for evil. Dean Swift firmly believed in royalty's curing the evil 
by the imposition of hands. 



330 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

ledgment in his own handwriting". Kenny closes his remarks 
upon " Macbeth^^ by saying- that " some critics claim for it the 
distinction of being the poet''s greatest work. We believe that 
judgments of this description can only be adopted with many 
qualifications. ' Macbeth^ wants the subtle life which distin- 
g-uishes some of the other dramatic conceptions of Shakespeare. 
Its action is plain^ rapid, downright ; and its larger form of ex- 
pression seems now and then somewhat constrained and artificial. 
But it was evidently written in the very plenitude of the poet^s 
powers, and in its wonderful scenic grandeur it must for ever 
occupy a foremost place among the creations of his majestic 
imagination.''^ 

The Baconians find in this tragedy some passages which, 
they think, are similar to those previously expressed by Sir 
Francis in his philosophical works, thus indicating a unity of 
authorship for both. The following is one of these assumed 
parallels, the first extract of which is taken from Bacon^s " Essay 
on Building -." — 

" He that builds a fair house upon an ill seat committeth him- 
self to prison ; nor do I reckon that an ill seed only, where the 
air is unwholesome, but likewise where it is unequal." 

Now comes the assumed parallel in " Macbeth/^ Act I. Scene 6. 

His castle hatli a pleasant seat — the air 
Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself 
Unto our gentle senses. 

I cheerfully leave the force of this proof to the judgment of the 
reader, and also, with equal willingness, refer to the same judg- 
ment the following remarks of Lord Chief Justice Campbell upon 
the evidences to be found in " Macbeth" of 

THE LEGAL ACQUIEEMENTS OP SHAKESPEARE. 

" In perusing this unrivalled tragedy," says his lordship, " I 
am so carried away by the intense interest which it excites that 
I fear I may have passed over legal phrases and allusions which 
I ought to have noticed ; but the only passage I find with the 
juridical mark upon it in ^ Macbeth^ is in Act IV. Scene 1, 
where, the hero exulting in the assurance from the "Weird Sisters 
that he can receive harm from ' none of woman born,^ he, rather 
in a lawyer-like manner, resolves to provide an indemnity, if the 
worst should come to the worst, — 



^^ Cymdeline." 331 

But yet I'll make assurance double sure, 
And tahe a hond of fate ; 

— without much considering what should be the penalty of the 
bond^ or how he was to enforce the remedy, if the condition 
should be broken. 

He, immediately after, goes on in the same legal jargon to 
say,— 

Our Blgli-placed Macbetli 
Shall live tJie lease of nature. 

But, unluckily for Macbeth, the lease contained no covenants 
for title or qtciet enjoyment : — there were likewise forfeitures to be 
incurred by the tenant — with a clause of re-entry — and conse- 
quently he was speedily ousted." So much for Lord Campbell's 
observations on " Macbeth.^' 



CYMBELINE.' 



" This exquisite and romantic drama,''' says the Rev. William 
Harness, " was probably written in 1609 ; and the plot was taken 
in a great degree from the Decameron of Boccacio."" Recording 
to HoKnshed, whose English history is the source of much of 
Shakespeare's work, Cymbeline began his reign in the nineteenth 
year of that of Augustus Csesar, and the play opens in the twenty- 
fourth year of that reign. Holinshed reports him to have reigned 
thirty-five years in all, leaving at his death two sons, Guiderius 
and Arviragus, upon whose fortunes a portion of the action turns. 
These sons were stolen from the king in their infancy, by an old 
knight named Belarius, in revenge for having been banished by 
the king on an unjust suspicion of his complicity with the Boman 
enemy. Belarius carried the boys to Wales, where, when they 
had grown strong enough, he lived with them in a cave, and 
trained them to hunting and other manly exercises. This depri- 
vation left the king with an only daughter, Imogen, who then 
became heiress of his crown, it being believed that the stolen 
boys were dead. The king, after a long period of decorous 
sorrow, married a widow (a feeble copy of Lady Macbeth) who 
brought with her an only son, named Cloten, a coarse, drunken, 
vicious, depraved creature, inheriting nearly all possible vices from 



332 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

his sclieming' and unprincipled mother. The new queen aimed, 
naturally enough, at the hand of the crown princess for her son, 
but when she had obtained the king's consent to the match it 
was suddenly discovered that Imogen had been secretly married 
to a gentleman named Leonatus Posthumus. This leads to the 
banishment of Posthumus, and to the subsequent elopement of 
Imogen from the court to find him. This sketch of the story is 
sufiicient to enable the reader to appreciate our illustrations. 
The first of these presents itself in Act III. Scene 3, where we 
find Belarius seated with Guiderius and Arviragus, now grown 
to men's estate, in front of a cave in a mountainous country in 
Wales. The old man has, to this moment, kept the young princes 
ignorant of their noble birth, having re-named them respectively 
Polydore and Cadwal; and he is now discoursing with them 
upon the incidents of the day's hunt, preliminary to despatching 
them again to the mountains to renew the chase. When they 
are gone, our poet embraces the opportunity for Belarius to incul- 
cate upon the British mind the innate and instinctive royalty of 
kings : — 

How hard it is, to hide the sparks of nature ! 

These boys know little, they are sons to the king ; 

Nor Cymbeline dreams that they are alive. 

They think they are mine : and, though train' d up thus meanly 

T the cave, wherein they how, their thoughts do hit 

The roofs of palaces ; and nature prompts them, 

In simple and low things, to prince it, much 

Beyond the trick of others. This Polydore — 

The heir of Cymbeline and Britain, whom 

The king his father called Guiderius, — Jove ! 

When on my three-foot stool I sit, and tell 

The warlike feats I have done, his spirits fly out 

Into my story : say, — Thus mine enemy fell ; 

And thus I set my foot on his neck ; even then 

The princely blood flows in his cheeh, he sweats, 

Strains his young nerves, and puts himself in posture 

That acts my words. The younger brother, Cadwal, 

(Once Arviragus), in as like a figure, 

Strikes life into my speech, and shows much more 

His own conceiving. Hark ! the game is roused ! — 

O Cymbeline ! heaven, and my conscience, knows, 

Thou didst unjustly banish me : whereon. 

At three, and two years old, I stole these babes ; 

Thinking to bar thee of succession, as 



• " Cymdeline!* 333 

Thou reft'st me of my lands. Euriphile, 
Thou wast their nurse ; they took thee for their mother, 
And every day do honour to her grave. \_Exit. 

Act III. Scene 3. 

Imogen next appears before tlie empty cave, disguised in boy's 
clothes, travelling in search of the port of Milford Haven, where 
the letter of Leonatus has informed her she will find him. 

Perceiving the cave, she enters it; but no sooner has she 
done so than Belarius and tlie two brothers return, and she is 
discovered. A beautiful scene of spontaneous and instinctive 
affection between Imogen and her brothers (though all uncon- 
scious of their kinship) then ensues, and she consents, for the 
while, to remain under their protection, reporting herself to be a 
page, and giving her name as Fidele. 

She is pursued sharply by the ruffian Cloten, who traces her 
to the neighbourhood. Unluckily for himself, however, Cloten 
falls in with Guiderius, and, being insolent, a quarrel ensues, in 
which Cloten is slain. 

Enter Gtjideeitts loitJi Cloten's head. 
Gui. This Cloten was a fool ; an empty purse, 

There was no money in't : not Hercules 

Could have knock'd out his brains, for he had none : 

Yet I not doing this, the fool had borne 

My head, as I do his. 
Bel. What hast thou done ? 

Gui. I am perfect, what : cut off one Cloten's head. 

Son to the queen, after his own report ; 

Who call'd me traitor, mountaineer ; and swore. 

With his own single hand he'd take us in. 

Displace our heads, where (thank the gods !) they grow, 

And set them on Lud's town. 
Bel. We are all undone. 

Gui. Why, worthy father, what have we to lose, 

But, that he swore to take our lives ? The law 

Protects not us : Then why should we be tender, 

To let an arrogant piece of flesh threat us ; 

Play judge, and executioner, all himself. 

Act IV. Scene 2. 

The young men then retire, whereupon Belarius again solilo- 
quizes : — 

Bel. thou goddess, 

Thou divine Nature, how thyself thou blazon'st, 



334 Shakespeare^ from an American Point of View. 

In these two princely boys ! They are as gentle 
As zephyi-s, blowing below the violet, 
Not wagging his sweet head : and yet as rough, 
Tlieir royal blood encJiafed, as the rud'st wind. 
That by the top doth take the mountain pine, 
And make him stoop to the vale. 'Tis wonderful. 
That an invisible instinct should frame them 
To royalty unlearn d ; honour untaught; 
Civility not seen from other : valour, 
That wildly grows in them, but yields a crop 
As if it had been sow'd ! Yet still it's strange, 
"What Cloten's being here to us portends ; 
Or what his death will bring us, 

JRe-enter Guideeius. 
Gui. Where's my brother ? 

I have sent Cloten's clotpol down the stream. 
In embassy to his mother : his body's hostage 
For its retui-n. 

WMle this has been going on^ Imogen, being weary at heart, 
has drank a potion perfidiously given to her by the queen, but 
which, though meant by the latter to be a poison, turns out 
to be only a powerful narcotic. Its real faculty was to produce 
a trance, which simulated death, as in the case of Juliet. It 
had this effect upon Imogen, who is found, a little while after- 
wards, by Arviragus, lying apparently dead upon the sward. 

He-enter AEViSAcrs, bearing liioGES" as dead. 
Bel. Look, here he comes. 

And brings the dire occasion in his arms. 

Of what we blame him for ! 
Aev. The bird is dead, 

That we have made so much on. I had rather 

Have skipp'd from sixteen years of age to sixty. 

To have turn'd my leaping time into a crutch, 

Than have seen this. 
Gui. sweetest, fairest lily ! 

My brother wears thee not one-half so well, 

As when thou grew'st thyself. 

Aev. With fairest flowers. 

Whilst summer lasts, and I live here, Fidele, 
I'll sweeten thy sad grave : Thou shalt not lack 
The flower, that's like thy face, pale primrose ; nor 
The azured hare-bell, like thy veins ; no, nor 
The leaf of Eglantine, whom not to slander, 
Out-sweeten'd not thy breath : the ruddock would 



" Cymbeline!' 335 

With charitable bill (0 bill, sore-shaming 

Those rich-left heirs that let their fathers lie 

Without a monument !) bring thee all this ; 

Yea, and furr'd moss besides, when bowers are none. 

To winter-ground thy corse. 
Gui. Pr'ythee have done : 

And do not play in wench-like words with that 

Which is so serious. Let us bury him, 

And not protract with admiration what 

Is now due debt. To the grave. 
Aev. Say, where shall's lay him? 

Gui. By good Murijiliile, our mother. 
Aev. Be it so : 

And let us, Polydore, though now our voices 

Have got the mannish crack, sing him to the ground, 

As once our mother ; use like note, and ^oords, 

Save that Euriphile must be Fidele. 
Gur. Cadwal, 

I cannot sing : I'll weep, and word it with thee : 

For notes of sorrow, out of tune, are worse 

Than priests and fanes that lie. 

Belarius^ hereupon, seeing tliat the boys are about to bury 
Imogen on terms of equahty with the beheaded prince, inter- 
poses, and volunteers honours to the dead man's rank, in the 
following servile manner : — 

Bel. Great griefs, I see, medicine the less : for Cloten 
Is quite forgot. Se was a queen's son, hoys : 
And, though he came our enemy, remember, 
He was paid for that : Though mean and mighty, rotting 
Together, have one dust ; yet reverence, 
{That angel of the world), doth maJce distinction 
Of place 'tween high and low. Our foe was princely ; 
And though you took his life, as being our foe. 
Yet bury him, as a prince. 

These expressions of grovelling homage to mere rank, in the 
mouth of a worthy character like Belarius, invested, as that rank 
was, in the body of an utter beast and ruffian, as the speaker 
knew Cloten to be, show an extent of base cringing and moral 
abasement to mere worldly station, as contrasted with the 
respect due that " pale primrose and azured hare-bell, pure Fidele,^'' 
which is absolutely painful. It is the very worst and lowest 
specimen of the abjectness of royal worship that has yet appeared 
to us in Shakespeare; and so shocks our better sentiments. 



33^ Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

that we can hardly refrain from hoping, in excuse, that the poet 
was well paid for it. 

Indeed, Guiderius protests against the old man^s sentiments, 
by saying to his brother, as he points to the hulk of Cloten : — 

Pray you, fetch him hither. 

Thersites' body is as good as Ajax, 

When neither is alive. 
Aev. If you'll go fetch him, 

We'll say our song the whilst — Brother, begin. 

{Exit Belaeitjs. 
Gui. Nay, Cadwal, we must lay his head to the east ; 

My father hath a reason for't. 
Aev. 'Tis true. 

Gui. Come on then, and remove him. 

This discrimination in favour of the headless trunk of Cloten 
is all the more offensive, because the boys had thought Fidele to 
be good enough to lay beside their (supposed) mother, Euriphile. 

The illustrations which follow bear likewise upon Shakespeare's 
favourite discrimination against a common person for a lord. 
The first of these occurs in a field of battle in Britain, where 
Leonatus, having come in with the Eoman forces from Italy, 
changes his clothes in order to fight for his country : — 

Therefore, good heavens, 
Hear patiently my purpose ; I'll disrobe me 
Of these Italian weeds, and suit myself 
As does a Briton peasant : so I'll fight 
Against the part I come with ; so I'll die 
For thee, Imogen, even for whom my life 
Is, every breath, a death : and thus, unknown, 
Pitied nor hated, to the face of peril 
Myself I'll dedicate. Let me make men Jcnow 
More valour in me than my liahits show. 
Gods, put the strength o' the Leonati in me ! 
To shame the guise o' the world, I will begin 
The fashion, less without, and more within. 

Act V. Scene 1. 

In the following scene he fights in the thick of the battle with 
lachimo, an Italian knight, who has slandered Imogen. He 
disarms and leaves him, whereupon lachimo says, — 

The heaviness and guilt within my bosom 
Takes off my manhood : I have belied a lady, 
The princess of this country, and the air on't 



* " Cymbeline." 337 

Eevengingly enfeebles me : Or, could this carl, 

A. very drudge of nature's, have subdued me. 

In my profession ? Knighthoods and honours, borne 

As I wear mine, are titles but of scorn. 

If that thy gentry, Britain, go before 

This lout, as he exceeds our lord, the odds 

Is that we scarce are men, and you are gods. • 

Belarlus, afterward, in relating the exploit of Leonatus before 
the court, thus extols the strange courage of the supposed pea- 
sant : — 

Bel. I never saw 

Such noble fury in so poor thing, " 

Such precious deeds in one that promised nought 
But beggary and poor looks. 

The two following illustrations, though not of much force, 
are entitled to our notice. The first illustrates the religious 
point, and evinces a Catholic doctrinal abhorrence of suicide ; the 
second bears, though vaguely, upon the question of relative social 
estimation : — 

Imo. Against self-slaughter 

There is a prohibition so divine 
That cravens my weak hand. 

Act III. Scene 4. 

■afr jf« •!& 

W W 'IP 

Imo. Two beggars told me 

I could not miss my way : Will poor folks lie 

That have afflictions on them ; knowing 't is 

A punishment or trial ? Yes ; no wonder, 

When rich ones scarce tell true : To lapse in fulness 

Is sorer than to lie for need : and falsehood 

Is worse in kings than beggars. 

Dr. Johnson, in speaking of this play, remarks that " it has 
many just sentiments, some natural dialogues, and some pleasing 
scenes;" but adds, "they are obtained at the expense of much 
incongruity. To remark the folly of the fiction, the absurdity of 
the conduct, the confusion of the names and manners of difierent 
times, and the impossibility of the events in any system of life, 
were to waste criticism upon unresisting imbecility, upon faults 
too evident for detection, and too gross for aggravation.''^ 

Dr. Drake protests against the enormous injustice of the above 
paragraph by the egotistical leviathan, declaring very correctly 



33^ Shakespeare, frojn an American Point of View. 

that "nearly every page of ' Cymbeline' will^ to a reader of any 
taste or discrimination^ bring- the most decisive evidence/^ In 
connexion with this vindication^ however^ Drake is forced to 
admit " that ' Cymbeline ' possesses many of the too common 
inattentions of Shakespeare ; that it exhibits a frequent violation 
as to costume^ and a singular confusion of nomenclature^ cannot 
be denied ; but these,'" says he, " are trifles light as air when 
contrasted with merits which are of the very essence of dramatic 
worth, rich and full in all that breathes of vigour, animation, and 
intellect." 

These observations by both Johnson and Drake of the incon- 
gruities of the piece as to time, manners, and costumes, and, 
moreover, the fact mentioned by Harness, that the poet has 
peopled his Rome with modern Italians, must all be considered 
as decisive against the presumed authorship by Bacon, for Sir 
Francis had travelled in Italy, and knew better ; while, on the 
other hand, they are just such errors as might easily have been 
fallen into by William Shakespeare, the untravelled London 
manager. 



EOMEO AND JULIET. 



Knight, in presenting this tragedy, in his last edition of the 
plays of our poet, states that it was first printed in the year 
1597. The second edition was printed in 1599, and the title 
to that edition declared it to be " newly corrected, augmented, 
and amended.''' "There can be no doubt whatever,"" he says, 
"that the corrections, augmentations, and emendations were 
those of the author."" And he adds, that " we know nothing in 
literary history more curious or more instructive than the example 
of minute attention, as well as consummate skill, exhibited by 
Shakespeare in correcting, augmenting, and amending the first 
copy of this play."" This view of Knight"s is, however, in oppo- 
sition to the general opinion that Shakespeare rarely and never 
carefully prepared any of his plays for print. 

" The story of it,"" says Hunter, " appears in a history of Verona, 
comparatively modern, and certainly not written until after the 
tale had appeared in the romance writers. They now show at 
Verona a cistus which they call the tomb of Juliet."" To this 



*' Romeo and yuliety 339 

testimony of Hunter I can add^ on my own part, tliat during a 
visit to Verona in 1870, 1 was shown the house in which tradition 
reported Juliet had lived, and the garden wall over which it was 
said Romeo had leaped. This pleasant illusion is a never-failing 
resource with the local guides for the shillings and sixpences of 
English and American travellers. 

"No play of Shakespeare^s," continues Hunter, "has been, 
from the first, more popular than this — perhaps none so popular. 
The interest of the story, the variety of the characters, the appeals 
to the hearts of all beholders, the abundance of what may be 
called episodical passages of singular beauty, such as Queen Mab, 
the Friar^s husbandry, the starved Apothecary, and the gems of 
the purest poetry, which are scattered in rich abundance — these 
all concur to make it the delight of the many, as it is also a 
favourite study for the few. But so tragical a story ministers to 
a depraved appetite in the many. The mass of Englishmen love 
scenes of horror, whether in reality or in the mimic representa- 
tions on the stage. Shakespeare seems to have understood this, and, 
both here and in Hamlet, he leaves scarcely any one alive. Even 
the insignificant Benvolio is not permitted to live out the story. 
It would be profanation, however, to believe that this has been a 
principal cause of the extreme popularity of ' E-omeo and Juliet,'' 
which began in the author's own time, and is continued in ours.'''' 

The evidences in this play which will most interest us are those 
bearing upon the fact that Shakespeare's mind was thoroughly 
imbued with the E-oman Catholic faith. We find several indica- 
tions of this in the great reverence with which he always speaks 
of Friar Laurence, and of the lioly or mother church, through 
the mouths of Romeo, Paris, Juliet, and Lady Capulet. Also 
through the auxiliary facts which paint the friar, unlucky as he 
was, as the most elevated and estimable of the dramatis persona. 

The first evidence we get of this religious tendency is in the 
lines where Romeo decides to ask the friar to marry him to 
Juliet : — 

Hence ■will I to my ghostly friar's close cell, 
His lielp to crave and my dear hope to tell. 

The friar, however, who knows Romeo to have been a desperate 
young rake, rebukes him with a reference to Rosaline, a nymph 
with whom he had been giddily enamoured : — 



340 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

Be plain, good son, and homely in thy drift. 
Riddling confession finds but riddling shrift. 

Every indication in this and subsequent conversations of the 
various characters who come in contact with Friar Laurence, 
show that Shakespeare was fully impressed with the Roman 
Catholic idea that marriage was a sacrament, and not a mere 
civil contract. Romeo says to the Nurse in the second act, — 

Bid her devise some means to come to shrift 
This afternoon ; 

And there shall she at Friar Laurence' cell 
Se shrived and married. 

In Scene 6 of the same act, when the marriage takes place, 
the friar says, — 

So smile the heavens upon tJiis Jioly act. 
That after hours with sorrow chide us not. 

To which Romeo answers, — 

Amen, amen ! 
Do thou but close oiir hands with holy words. 
Pel Come, come with me, and we will make short work ; 
For, by your leaves, you shall not stay alone, 
Till holy church incorporate two in one. 

In the next act the friar rebukes Romeo for his intention of 
committing suicide, by reminding him of the Catholic canon 
against self-slaughter : — 

I thought thy disposition better temper'd 
Hast thou slain Tybalt? wilt thou slay thyself? 
And slay the lady that in thy life lives. 
By doing damned hate upon thyself. 

The friar, being relieved by the nuptial ceremony from his con- 
cern about leaving the imprudent young couple together, now 
seems rather to urge the legal consummation of the marriage : — 

Go, get thee to thy love, as was decreed. 
Ascend her chamber hence, and comfort her. 

But the expression which has given rise to more controversy 
than any other on the subject of Shakespeare^s religious faith 
occurs in Act IV. Scene 1, where Juliet, under the coercion of 
her mother, and after her secret marriage with Romeo, accom- 



" Romeo and yuliet" 341 

panics Paris to the friar's cell, as a preliminary to her new nuptials 
with that gentleman. The expression is, — 

JxTii. Ai"e you at leisure, holy father, now ; 

Or shall I come to you at evening mass ? 
Fei. My leisure serves me, pensive daughter, now : 

My lord, we must entreat the time alone. 

Now, it is claimed, as we have already seen, that the use of 
the term " evening mass" shows Shakespeare to have been igno- 
rant of the Catholic religion, and in support of this idea the 
German critic, H. Von Priesen, plausibly remarks "that no 
Catholic writer could have spoken of evening mass, inasmuch as 
mass is essentially a morning rite." Staunton had previously 
noticed the same difficulty,^ but the word mass in this passage 
is explained by Clarke as meaning generally — service, office, or 
prayer. Grant White, adopting in full the English Protestant 
view, observes, " If Shakespeare became a member of the Church 
of Eome, it must have been after he wrote ' Romeo and Juliet,' 
in which he speaks of evening mass ; for the humblest member 
of that Church knows that there is no mass at vespers." 

My conclusions run the other way, and are in favour of our 
poet's correctness in his use of the disputed phrase. But for the 
full discussion of this apparent incongruity I will refer the reader 
back to pages 43, 46, 47, 48, and 49, in the first division of this 
work^ as a proper portion of this chapter. For further and 
authoritative information going to show that Shakespeare was 
correct in his use of the term '' evening mass," I would advise 
the reader to consult Duras's " Universal History of the Church," 
at pp. 96, 104, 197, 277, 280, 540, and 627 of vol. i., and 
pp. 74, 271, and 283 of vol. ii. Also to see the " History of the 
Franciscans, and Lives of the Saints," published at Albany by 
Baxter and Co. ; also '' Lives of the English Martyrs," pub- 
lished by the Catholic Publication Society of New York; and 
Father O'Reilly's article on Mass in " Appleton's Encyclopedia." 

The character of the Nurse in " Romeo and Juliet " is also 
essentially Catholic. Who but a Catholic, or, at the least, one 
accustomed to live amongst Catholics, could have drawn this ex- 
traordinary creation, which bears so much resemblance to the old 

* See note in Dowden's " Shakespeare's Mind and Art," at page 39. 
23 



342 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

Irish nurses and servants of our own time, with their " God rest 
her soul/' " God give her peace/' &c. In the first act the 
Nurse says, when describing the childhood of Juliet to her mother, 
Lady Capulet, — 

Even and odd, of all days in the year, 
Come Lammas eve at night, shall she be fourteen ; 
Susan and she — Q-od rest all Christian souls J 
Were of an age. — Well, Susan is with God. 
She was too good for me. 

How very Catholic all this is ! I cannot help believing that the 
original of this character must have been some old Catholic 
woman of Stratford, perhaps an aunt of the poet, or some 
venerable crone who held to the old faith, and was the friend of 
his youth. 

A little further on the Nurse says, — 

And then my husband — God be with his soul ! 

exactly as our Bridgets and Norahs would speak of their dead 
spouses to-day. 

The ball-room scene contains many very Catholic allusions, 
amongst the most striking of which are the following : — 

EoM. If I profane with my unworthy hand 

This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this, — 

My lips, two blushing pilgrims ready stand 

To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss. 
Jul. Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much 

Which mannerly devotion shows in this, 

For saints have hands that pilgrims hands do touch ^ 

And palm to palm is holy palmer's kiss. 
Rom. Have not saints lips and holy palmers too ? 
Jul. Ay ! pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer. 
EoM. O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do ; 

They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair. 
Jul. Saints do not move, though grant for prayer's sake. 
EoM. Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take. 

Thus from my lips, by yours, my sin is purged. \JHe hisses her. 
Jul. Then have my lips the sin that they have took. 

* An evident allusion to the sacred relics and to the wax figures cover- 
ing the bones of saints, which are still kissed by the Catholic pilgrims, 
who are now flocking by hundreds of thousands to Lourdes, to Paray-le- 
Monial, and to other like religious places. 



" Romeo and yuhety 343 

The last few lines are singularly Catholic, for all impurity of 
thoughts or looks even, are rigorously condemned by father con- 
fessors, on the principle that the mere desire of love, is as bad as 
the actual sinj unless it be consecrated in wedlock. Juliet's 
declaration in the balcony scene, is in full religious agreement 
with the rest : — 

Three words, dear Eomeo, and good night, indeed. 

If that thy bent of love be honourable. 

Thy purpose marriage, send me word to-morrow. 

By one I will procure to come to thee. 

Where and what time thou wilt perform the rite. 

Juliet evidently considers that despair and death are preferable 
to dishonour, and her subsequent noble speeches concerning her 
duties as " a true wife to her true lord,"*^ are singularly Catholic 
in tone, for, whatever may be the faults of the Romish Church, 
it must be cheerfully admitted that it has always upheld the 
sanctity of matrimony in the most uncompromising manner. 

E-omeo also is a thorough Catholic, and his evident confidence 
in his father confessor is expressed in the lines already quoted : — 

Hence will I to my ghostly father's cell. 
His help to crave, and my dear hap to teU. 

Mark, also, that Father Laurence is well aware of the previous 
attachment which existed between Romeo and Rosaline, a fact 
from which we may conclude that young Romeo had been a 
very regular attendant at the worthy monk^s confessional. 
But I might quote evidences of Shakespeare^s intimacy with 
Catholic ideas, rites, ceremonies, and customs, from almost every 
scene in this play, which, as I have before said, is essentially 
Catholic from first to last. I will conclude this chapter with the 
following beautiful and noble speech of Friar Laurence, who, 
by the way, is the beau ideal of a Catholic priest, from the 
fifth scene of the fourth act : — 

Heaven and yourself 
Had part in this fair maid ; now heaven hath all, 
And all the better is it for the maid ; 
Your part in her you could not keep from death ; 
But heaven keeps his part in eternal life. 
The most you sought was — her promotion ; 
For 'twas your heaven, she should be advanced. 
And weep ye now seeing she is advanced 
Above the clouds, as high as heaven itself? 



344 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

O, in this love, you love your child so ill, 
That you run mad, seeing that she is well. 

Dry up your tears, and stick your rosemary 
On this fair corse ; and, as the custom is, 
In all her best array bear her to church. 



SHAKESPEARE S LEGAL ACQUIEEMENTS. 

The evidences which Lord Campbell finds in" Romeo and Juliet" 
of Shakespeare^s legal acquirements, are neither numerous nor, 
as it seems to me, are they very weighty. His lordship, how- 
ever, is evidently of a dijfferent opinion. Says his lordship, — 

'' The first scene of this romantic drama, may be studied by 
a student of the Inns of Court to acquire a knowledge of the 
law of ' assault and battery,^ and what will amount to 2(. justi- 
fication. Although Samson exclaims, ' My naked weapon is out : 
quarrel, I will back thee ;^ he adds, ' Let us take the law of our 
sides ; let them begin.'' Then we learn that neither frowning nor 
liting the tlmmh, nor answering to a question, *■ Do you bite your 
thumb at us, sir?^ ^I do bite my thumb, sir,' would be enough 
to support the plea of se defendendo. 

"The scene ends with old Montagu and old Capulet being 
bound over, in the English fashion, to keep the peace, — in the 
same manner as two Warwickshire clowns, who had been fight- 
ing, might have been dealt with at Charlecote before Sir Thomas 
Lucy. 

" The only other scene in this play I have marked to be noticed 
for the use of law terms, is that between Mercutio and Een- 
volio, in which they keenly dispute which of the two is the more 
quarrelsome ; — at last Benvolio — not denying that he had quar- 
relled with a man for coughing in the street, whereby he wakened 
Benvolio's dog, that lay asleep in the sun — or that he had quar- 
relled with another for tying his new shoes with an old riband, 
— contents himself with this tti, quoq^ite answer to Mercutio : — 

An I were so apt to quarrel as thou art, any man should buy the fee- 
simjple of my life for an hour and a quarter. — Act III. Scene 1. 

"Talking oiihe fee-simple of a man's life, and calculating how 
many hours' purchase it was worth, is certainly what might not 
unnaturally be expected from the clerk of a country attorney.'' 



" yzilius Ccesar" 345 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 



JULIUS C^SAR. 



The tragedy of " Julius Cassar '' presents the first challenge to 
that portion of my theme, which declares we cannot find in 
all of Shakespeare's dramas one single aspiration in favour of 
human liberty ; for the patriotic part of Brutus, with its splendid 
invocation of the Roman conspirators to "Peace, Freedom, and 
Liberty,^' seems to be in direct conflict with my theory. 

" Julius Csesar " belongs to what are known as the three 
Roman plays, the first of which is '^ Coriolanus,^' and the last, 
" Antony and Cleopatra/'' I have transposed the order pf the two 
first, however, for greater convenience in the presentation of our 
case. None of these plays appeared in print until after Shake- 
speare's death (folio of 1633), but they are generally supposed 
to have been produced in 1607, 1608, 1609, though Furnival's 
Table credits the production of " Julius Csesar " to a period as 
early as 1601-3. The strongest probability is, therefore, that it 
belongs to that period of our poet's powers, which began soon 
after the opening of the seventeenth century, and shared the 
supreme honours of his mind with " Macbeth,'^ " Troilus,^' 
" Othello," " Lear/-' and " Hamlet." 

Shakespeare is- entirely indebted for the story of "Julius 
Csesar"" to a translation from Plutarch, made by Sir Thomas 
North in 1579, and so faithfully has he followed this historical 
outline, that in portions of the play our poet seems almost to 
have copied from North's text. It is observable, however, that he 
has moulded his characters somewhat differently from Plutarch's 
models, and most notably has done so in the case of Brutus, to 
whom he has imparted a transcendant loftiness of sentiment, 
which history has not entirely accorded to him.^ In speaking of 

1 North says, " Cassius was a choleiicke man, and hating Csesar privately, 
lie incensed Brutus against him The friends and countrimen of 



34^ Shakespeare^ from an American Point of View. 

this figure of the play, a commentator, whose name I cannot give 
because the volume from which I quote has lost its title-page, aptly 
says, that '^ Shakespeare doubtless intended to make Brutus his 
hero j he has therefore exalted his character and suppressed his 
defects. Public duty has been assigned, both by the poet and 
the historian as the motive of Brutus for joining in the conspi- 
racy; but particulars are added by the former, which give an 
amiableness to his character that we should vainly look for in 
Plutarch. The obligations of Brutus to Csesar are but slightly 
noticed ; it would have defeated the dramatist^s purpose of raising 
him in our esteem." " The great honours and favour Csesar 
showed unto Brutus/^ says North, " kept him backe, that of him- 
self alone he did not conspire nor consent to depose him of his 
kingdome. For Csesar did not only save his life after the battle 
of Pharsalia, when Pompey fled, and did, at his request also, save 
many more of his friends besides ; but furthermore, he put a mar- 
vellous confidence in him." Moreover, Csesar had some reason 
to believe that Brutus was his son.^ 

Now, in order to ascertain what kind of a patriot Brutus was, 
I will refer, as briefly as possible, to what is received, on all 

Brutus, botli by divers procurements and sundrie rumours of the citie, and by- 
many bills also, did openly call and procure Mm to do that he did. Now 
■when Cassius felt his friends, and did stir them up against Csesar, they all 
agreed, and promised to take part with him, so Brutus were the chiefe of 
their conspiracie. They told him, that so high an enterprise and attempt as 
that, did not so much require men of manhood and courage to draw their 
swords, as it stood them upon to have a man of such estimation as Brutus, 
to make every man boldly thinke, that by his onely presence the fact were 
holy and just. If he tooke not this course, then that they should go to it 
with fainter hearts ; and when they had done it, they should be more fearfull, 
because every man would thinke that Brutus would not have refused to have 
made one with them, if the cause had been good and honest. Therefore 
Cassius, considering this matter with himselfe, did first of all speake to 
Brutus.'' 

2 Plutarch, in his " Life of Marcus Brutus," distinctly states that Csesar 
" had good reason to believe Brutus to be his son, by ServUlia." Suetonius, 
in his " Lives of the Twelve Caesars," confirms this statement, and adds to 
the Shakespearian words of the dying Ceesar, thus: "And thou, too, oh, 
Brutus, my son ! " According to Dio Cassius he cried out, " You, too, Brutus, 
my son ? " If he did use the expression, it may have meant more than a 
mere term of aifection, for scandal declared that Brutus was his son, the fruit 
of an amour between his mother Servillia and Csesar. — Forsyth's " Cicero," 
p. 419 ; London, 1869. 



^^ Julius CcEsar." 347 

sides, as reliable history about Csesar and his times ; and I pray 
it may be understood, at the beginning-, that I do not mean to 
dispute, or in the slightest degree to undervalue the sincerity, 
and even loftiness of Brutus^ patriotism, because his sympathies 
were not with the so-called common people; for undoubtedly 
a man may love his comitry equally under a belief in monarchy 
or oligarchy, with one who is a patriot according to the 
democratic ideal. But the observation which I make, from the 
" American point of view,-*^ is, that the character and sentiments 
of Brutus do not infringe my theory, or relieve William Shake- 
speare from the charge of never sympathizing with the working 
classes, or with general political liberty. In short, the text of 
this play will show that Brutus was as unbending an aristocrat 
as Coriolanus, and that the only liberty for which he bathed his 
arms in the blood of his best friend was, the liberty of retaining 
the government, falsely named a E/Cpublic, in the hands of the 
Patricians or slave-owners, simply because he did not wish the 
importance of the Patrician class should be reduced by the supreme 
authority of a king. Brutus, doubtless, believed that the 
oligarchical and slave-holding form of government was the best 
form for the welfare of his country, but William Shakespeare 
wrote under a later and more beneficent experience, and he 
should have sympathized with the bondage and sufferings of the 
poor. The detestation of Coriolanus for Eome^s ^^ woolen slaves^^ 
and "base mechanics '•' was not a whit softened, however, by 
Shakespeare, toward Jack Cade and his brave followers, of the 
fifteenth century. It is very strange, therefore, that our poet, 
while writing under the light of the seventeenth century, and of 
the liberty which was dawning upon his own times, could never 
find one impulse in his heart to celebrate the march of Mercy. 

In the period of Coriolanus, whom he honours with the entire 
weight of his admiration, the following is described by a historian 
of authority as the political and social condition of the Republic 
of Eome : ^ — 

" The history of Borne during this period is one of great 
interest. The Patricians and Plebeians formed two distinct 
orders in the State. After the banishment of the kings, the 

' " History of Eome," by William Smith, LL.D. Harper and Brothers, 
New York, 1875. 



348 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

Patricians retained exclusive possession of political power. The 
Plebeians, it is true, could vote at the general elections, but, as 
they were mostly poor, they were out-voted by the Patricians 
and their clients. The consuls aad other magistrates were taken 
entirely from the Patricians, who also possessed the exclusive 
knowledge and administration of the law. In one word, the 
Patricians were a ruling, and the Plebeians a subject class. But 
this was not all. The Patricians formed not only a separate 
class, but a separate caste, not marrying with the Plebeians, and 
worshiping the gods with different religious rites. If a Patrician 
man married a Plebeian wife, or a Patrician woman a Plebeian 
husband, the State refused to recognize the marriage, and the 
offspring was treated as illegitimate. 

" The Plebeians had to complain not only of political, but also 
of private wrongs. The law of debtor and creditor was very 
severe at Home. If the borrower did not pay the money by the 
time agreed upon, his person was seized by the creditor, and he 
was obliged to work as a slave. Nay, in certain cases he might 
even be put to death by the creditor; and if there were more 
than one, his body might be cut in pieces and divided among 
them. The whole weight of this oppressive law fell upon the 
Plebeians ; and what rendered the case still harder was, that they 
were frequently compelled, through no fault of their own, to 
become borrowers. They were small landholders, living by 
cultivating the soil with their own hands ; but as they had to 
serve in the army without pay, they had no means of engaging 
labourers in their absence. Hence, on their return home, they 
were left without the means of subsistence or of purchasing seed 
for the next crop, and consequently borrowing was their only 
resource. 

" Another circumstance still farther aggravated the hardships 
of the Plebeians. The State possessed a large quantity of land 
called Ager Publicus, or the ' Public Land.'' This land originally 
belonged to the kings, being set apart for their support ; and it 
was constantly increased by conquest, as it was the practice, on 
the subjugation of a people, to deprive them of a certain portion 
of their land. This public land was let by the State subject to 
a rent ; but as the Patricians possessed the political power, they 
divided the public land among themselves, and paid for it only 
a nominal rent. Thus the Plebeians, by whose blood and unpaid 



" ytdius Ct^sar." 349 

toil mueli of this land had been won, were excluded from all 
participation in it/^ 

Reforms were made from time to time, but they did not confer 
upon the Plebeians any substantial liberties, for the condition of 
things in Rome, even three hundred years later than the time of 
Coriolanus, is thus described by the same author : — 

" Among many other important consequences of these foreign 
wars, two exercised an especial influence upon the future fate of 
the Republic. The nobles became enormously rich, and the 
peasant proprietors almost entirely disappeared. The wealthy 
nobles now combined together to keep in their own families the 
public offices of the State, which afforded the means of making 
such enormous fortunes. Thus a new nobility was formed, 
resting on wealth, and composed alike of plebeian and patrician 
families. Every one whose ancestry had not held any of the 
curule magistracies was called a Ne^ Man, and was branded as 
an upstart. It became more and more difficult for a New Man 
to rise to office, and the nobles were thus almost an hereditary 
aristocracy in the exclusive possession of the government. The 
wealth they had acquired in foreign commands enabled them not 
only to incur a prodigious expense in the celebration of the public 
games in their sedileship, with the view of gaining the votes of 
the people at future elections, but also to spend large sums of 
money in the actual purchase of votes. The first law against 
bribery was passed in 181 before Ohrist, a sure proof of the 
growth of the practice.'''' 

Now, this was the condition of things which Brutus and 
Cassius and their co-conspirators combined together to sustain. 
They never once dreamt of enfranchising their bondsmen, or 
of enlarging the liberties of the People. Their rebellion against 
Caesar was just such a selfish and aristocratic revolt as that 
which, in later days, took place among the English Barons 
against King John, which had not one patriotic motive in it. 
It resulted, long afterward, in advantages to the People, it is 
true, but it did not contemplate any, at the time. 

Caesar, with his large and liberal nature, his mighty courage, 
which disdained the mean calculations of conservativism, and his 
notoriously kind heart, which had been shown in his pardon and 
promotion of Brutus after the battle of Pharsalia, was really more 
disposed to popular reforms than any of his Patrician contem- 



350 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

poraries. His broad hand had bee a stretched out frequently 
toward the poor ; not only in largesses of corn, but in the exten- 
sion of their privileges ; and he kept continually making inroads 
upon the power of the Patricians, by way of bringing the People 
and himself nearer to each other. One of his measures to this 
end, was the frequent increasing of the number of Patrician 
families from the general mass of citizens; another was the 
selection of the two powerful officers, entitled JEdiles Cereales, 
which he instituted from the Plebeian class alone ; * and a third 
was the introduction of an agrarian law for a division among 
citizens of the rich Campanian lands. It was this latter law 
which, more than any other measure, alarmed the Patrician 
party. The bitterest opposition was instituted against it. 
Nevertheless, both Porapey and Crassus, on the other hand, 
spoke in its favour, and twenty thousand citizens, including a 
large number of Pompey's veterans, were benefited and politically 
" enabled" by it. In addition to this, Caesar instituted laws, during 
the periods of his several dictatorships, to relieve the hardships 
of debtors. In the same spirit he restored all exiles, and, next, 
conferred full citizenship upon the Transpadani, who had previously 
held qualified citizenship only, under the Latin franchise.' This 
man was so large, that smaller men, like Brutus and Cassius, 
and Cinna, and Casca, could not help being afraid of him ; and 
their revolt, so far as the most of them were concerned, proceeded 
either from motives of personal hatred or political jealousy. 
Certainly, it was not inspired by apprehension of his personal 
tyranny, for Caesar forgave in turn almost ever}^ man who had 
been his enemy. He feared nothing. As for Brutus, though a 
man of high courage and lofty principle, with a profound love of 
country, he was a sort of patriotic Don Quixote, whom the more 
crafty spirits in the plot against Caesar's life, tricked and cajoled 
to the support of their less worthy purpose. "With this analysis 
of the character of the ^^ Freedom, Liberty, and Enfranchise- 
ment,^'* which the conspirators invoked when they struck the 
foremost man of all the world, we will now proceed to examine 
extracts from the Shakespeare text. The play opens with a 
characteristic illustration of the author's estimation of mechanics, 
citizens, and tradesmen : — 

* JSTiebulir, page 626. James "Walton, London, 1870. 
6 Wm. Smith's Smaller History, p. 243. 



• ^^ Jtdius CcBsar!' 351 

Act I. Scene 1. — B,ome. A Street. 
Enter Fiavitts, Maetjllus, and a rabble of Citizens. 
Flay. Hence ; home, you idle creatures, get you home ; 
Is this a holiday ? What ! know you not, 
Being mechanical, you ought not walk, 
Upon a labouring day, witJiout the sign 
Of your profession / — Speak, what trade art thou ? 

1 CiT. Why, sir, a carpenter. 

Mae. Where is thy leather apron, and thy rule ? 

What dost thou with thy best apparel on ? — ■ 
You, sir ; what trade are you ? 

2 CiT. Truly, sir, in respect of a fine workman, I am but, as you would 

say, a cobbler. 

* * * • 

Flav. But wherefore art not in thy shop to-day ? 

Why dost thou lead these men about the streets ? 
2 CiT. Truly, sir, to wear out their shoes, to get myself into more work. 
But, indeed, sir, we make holiday, to see CiBsar, and to rejoice in his 

triumph. 

# * * 

Flat, Go, go, good countrymen, and, for this fault, 

Assemble all the poor men of your sort ; 

Draw them to Tyber banks, and weep your tears 

Into the channel, till the lowest stream 

Do kiss the most exalted shores of all. \_Exit Citizens. 

[To Maeulltjs.] See, whe'r their basest metal be not moved; 

They vanish tongue-tied in their guiltiness. 

Go you down that way towards the Capitol ; 

This way will I : Disrobe the images. 

If you do find them deck'd with ceremonies. 
Mae. May we do so ? 

You know, it is the feast of Lupercal. 
Flav. It is no matter ; let no images 

Be hung with Caesar's trophies. I'll about. 

And drive away the vulgar from the streets ; 

So do you too, where you perceive them thick. 

These growing feathers pluck'd from Csesar's wing, 

Will make him fly an ordinary pitch ; 

Who else would soar above the view of men. 

And keep us all in servile fearfulness. \_Exeunt. 

At the opening- of the next scene^ Csesar appears crossing the 
stage in grand triumphal procession towards the capital^ where 
the experiment of playfully offering him a crown is to be per- 
formed by Antony_, with a view of testing the temper of the 
people. After Caesar and his train go by, Brutus and Cassius 



352 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

remain. The artful Cassius then begins to work upon the mind 
of his susceptible brother-in-law, as follows : — 

Cas. Brutus, I do observe you now of late ; 

I have not from your eyes that gentleness, 

And show of love, as I was wont to have : 

You bear too stubborn and too strange a hand 

Over your friend that loves you. 
Betj. Cassius, 

Be not deceived : if I have veil'd my look, 

I turn the trouble of my countenance 

Merely upon myself. Vexed I am 

Of late with passions of some difference, 
, Conceptions only proper to myself, 

Which give some soil, perhaps, to my behaviours ; 

But let not therefore my good friends be grieved, 

(Among which number, Cassius, be you one,) 

Nor construe any further my neglect. 

Than that poor Brutus, with himself at war 

Forgets the shows of love to other men. 
Cas. Then, Brutus, I have much mistook your passion ; 

By means whereof, this breast of mine hath buried 

Thoughts of great value, worthy cogitations. 

Tell me, good Brutus, can you see your face ? 
Beu. No, Cassius ; for the eye sees not itself. 

But by reflection, by some other things. 
Cas. 'Tisjust; 

And it is very much lamented, Brutus, 

That you have no such mirrors, as will turn 

Your hidden worthiness into your eye. 

That you might see your shadow. I have heard. 

Where many of the best respect in Eome, 

(Except immortal Csesar) speaking of Brutus, 

And groaning underneath this age's yoke. 

Have wish'd that noble Brutus had his eyes. 
Beu. Into what dangers would you lead me, Cassius, 

That you would have me seek into myself 

For that which is not in me ? 

{Flourish and shout. 
Beu. What means this shouting ? I do fear, the people 

Choose Csesar for their king. 
Cas. ' Ay, do you fear it ? 

Then, must I think you would not have it so. 
Beu. I would not, Cassius ; yet I love him well. 

But wherefore do you hold me here so long ? 

What is it that you would impart to me ? 



" yulius CcEsarT 353 

If it be auglit toward the general good, 
Set honour in one eye, and death i' the other, 
And I will look on both indifferently ; 
For, let the gods so speed me, as I love 
The name of honour more than I fear death. 
# * * 

CaS. {speaJcing of Ccesar). Ye gods, it doth amaze me, 

A man of such a feeble temper should 

So get the start of the majestic world, 

And bear the palm alone. [^SJiout. Flourish. 

Betj. Another general shout I 

I do believe that these applauses are 

For some new honours that are heap'd on Csesar. 
Cas. Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world, 

Like a Colossus ; and we petty men 

Walk under his huge legs, and peep about 

To find ourselves dishonourable graves. 

Men at some time are masters of their fates : 

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, 

But in ourselves, that we are underlings. 

Brutus, and Csesar ! what should be in that Csesar ? 

Why should that name be sounded more than yours ? 

Write them together, yours is as fair a name ; 

Sound them, it doth become the mouth as weU ; 

Weigh them, it is as heavy ; conjure with them, 

Brutus will start a spirit as soon as Csesar. 

Now, in the names of all the gods at once. 

Upon what meat doth this our Csesar feed, 

That he is grown so great ? Age, thou art shamed : 

Rome, thou hast lost the breed ofnohle bloods. 

When went there by an age, since the great flood, 

But it was famed with more than with one man ? 

When could they say, till now, that talk'd of Eome, 

That her wide walls encompass'd but one man ? 

Now is it Eome indeed, and room enough, 

When there is in it but one only man. 

! you and I have heard our fathers say. 

There was a Brutus once, that would have brook'd 
Th' eternal devil to keep his state in Eome, 
As easily as a king. 
Betj. That you do love me, I am nothing jealous ; 

Wliat you would work me to, I have some aim ; 
How I have thought of this, and of these times, 

1 shall recount hereafter : for this present, 

I would not, so with love I might entreat you. 
Be any farther moved. What you have said, 
I will consider : what you have to say, 



354 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

I will witli patience hear, and find a time 

Both, meet to hear, and answer, such high things. 

Till then, my noble friend, chew upon this : 

Brutus had rather be a villager, 

Than, to repute himself a son of Rome 

Under such hard conditions, as this time 

Is like to lay upon us. 

Cas. I am glad, that my weak words 

Have struck but thus much show of fire from Brutus. 

B:su. The games are done, and Caesar is returning. 
Re-enter CiESAR, and his Train. 

Cas. As they pass by pluck Casca by the sleeve ; 
And he will, after his sour fashion, tell you 
What hath proceeded worthy note to-day. 

Bbu. I will do so : — But, look you, Cassius, 

The angry spot doth glow on Caesar's brow, 
And all the rest look like a chidden train : 
Calphurnia's cheek is pale ; and Cicero 
Looks with such ferret and such fiery eyes, 
As we have seen him in the Capitol, 
Being cross'd in conference by some senators. 

Cas. Casca will tell us what the matter is. 

C^s. Antonius. 

Ant. Caesar. 

C^s. Let me have men about me that are fat ; 

Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o' nights : 
Yond' Cassius has a lean and hungry look ; 
He thinks too much : such men are dangerous. 

Ant. Fear him not, Caesar, he's not dangerous ; 
He is a noble Roman, and well given. 

C^S. 'Would he were fatter : — But I fear him not : 
Yet if my name were liable to fear, 
I do not know the man I should avoid 
So soon as that spare Cassius. He reads much ; 
He is a great observer, and he looks 
Quite through the deeds of men : he loves no plays, 
As thou dost, Antony ; he hears no music : 
Seldom he smiles ; and smiles in such a sort, 
As if he mock'd himself, and scorn'd his spirit 
That could be moved to smile at anything. 
Such men as he be never at heart's ease, 
Whiles they behold a greater than themselves ; 
And therefore are they very dangerous. 
1 rather tell thee what is to be fear'd, 
Than what I fear, for always I am Caesar. 
Come on my right hand, for this ear is deaf, 
And tell me truly what thou think'st of hira. 



^^ yulhts CcBsary 355 

Exeunt CiESAE and Ms Train. Casca stays heJiind. 

Casca. You pull'd me by the cloak ; Would you speak with me ? 

Beu. Ay, Casca ; tell us what hath chanced to-day. 
That Caesar looks so sad ? 

Casca. Why you were with him, were you not ? 

Beu. I should not then ask Casca what hath chanced. 

Casca. Why, there was a crown offered him : and being offered him, he 
put it by with the back of his hand, thus ; and then the people fell a' shouting. 

Beu. What was the second noise for ? 

Casca. Why, for that too. 

Cas. They shouted thrice ; What was the last cry for ? 

Casca. Why, for that too. 

Bexj. Was the crown offer'd him thrice ? 

Casca. Ah, marry, was't, and he put it by thrice, every time gentler than 
other; and at every putting by, mine honest neighbour shouted. 

Cas. Who offer'd him the crown ? 

Casca. Why, Antony. 

Beu. Tell us the manner of it, gentle Casca. 

Casca. I can as well be hanged, as tell the manner of. it : it was mere 
foolery, I did not mark it. I saw Mark Antony offer him a crown ; — yet 
'twas not a crown neither, 'twas one of these coronets ; — and, as I told you, 
he put it by once ; but, for all that, to my thinking, he would fain have had 
it. Then he offered it to him again ; then he put it by again : but, to my 
thinking, he was very loath to lay his fingers off it. And then he offered it 
the third time ; he put it the third time by : and still as he refused it, the 
rabhlement hooted, and clapped their chapped hands, and threio up their 
sweaty night-caps, and uttered such a deal of stinhing breath because 
Ccesar refused the crown, that it had almost choaTced Casar ; for he 
swooned, and fell down at it : and for mine oion part, I durst not laugh, 
for fear of opening my lips, and receiving the bad air. 

Cas. But, soft, I pray you : What ? Did Csesar swoon ? 

Casca. He fell down in the market-place, and foamed at mouth, and was 
speechless. 

Beu. 'Tis very like ; he hath the falling sickness. 

Cas. No, Csesar hath it not ; but you, and I, 

And honest Casca, we have the falling sickness. 

Casca. I know not what you mean by that ; but, I am sure, Cffisar fell 
down. If the tag-rag people did not clap him, and hiss him, according as 
he pleased and displeased them, as they used to do the players in the 
theatre, I am no true man. 

Beu. What said he, when he came unto himself .'^ 

Casca. Marry, before he fell down, when he perceived the common herd 
was glad he refused the crown, he plucked me ope his doublet, and offered 
them his throat to cut. — An I had been a man of any occupation, if I would 
not have taken him at a word, I would I might go to hell among the rogues : 
— and so he fell. When he came to himself again, he said, if he had done or 
said anything amiss, he desired their worships to think it was his infirmity. 



356 Shakespeare, from an Ainerican Point of View. 

Three or four wenches, where I stood, cried, " Alas, good soul ! " — and 
forgave Mm with all their hearts. 

Bku. And after that lie came thus sad away ? 

Cas. Ay. l^Exit. 

Bett. For this time I will leave you : 

To-morrow, if you please to speak with me, 

I will come home to you ; or, if you will. 

Come home to me, and I will wait for you. 
Cas. I will do so : — till then, think of the world. 

[_Exit Bettttjs. 

Well, Brutus, thou art noble ; yet, I see, 

Thy honourable mettle may be wrought 

From that it is disposed : therefore, 't is meet 

That noble minds Jceep ever loith their liJces ; 

For who so firm that cannot be seduc'd .P 

Csesar doth bear me hard, but he loves Brutus : 

If I were Brutus now, and he were Cassius, 

He should not humour me. I will this night. 

In several hands, in at his windows throw, 

As if they came from several citizens. 

Writings, all tending to the great opinion 

That Rome holds of his name ; wherein obscurely 

Caesar's ambition shall be glanced at : 

And, after this, let Csesar seat him sure. 

For we will shake him, or worse days endure. ^JExit. 

In all of this thrilling' and impassioned dialogue it will be 
perceived that there is not one thought of popular liberty, the 
only motive of the conspirators being to protect the threatened 
equality of Brutus, Cassius, & Co., with Csesar, and to maintain 
the ascendancy of the Eoman nobility, over a king. I have 
given the dialogue above at such length, simply because the 
necessities of illustration would not permit me to curtail it. 
Besides, the splendour of the language and the vigour of its 
passion excuse all the space afforded to them. It may be 
objected that the sour, cynical Casca is alone responsible for the 
above expressions of contempt towards the people, but it must 
be observed, that he utters these derogatory sentiments in the 
presence of Brutus and Cassius without rebuke or protest on 
their part. They must, therefore, be held answerable for par- 
ticipating in them. 

In the scene second of the second act, when several strange 
portents warn Csesar not to go forth upon the 15th of March 
(the Ides of March) to the Senate House, where the conspirators, 



'■'■ yulius CcBsar^ 357 

fixed in their fell purpose, are awaiting- liim, he is entreated hy 
his wife Calphurnia not to venture out of doors : — 

Calphuenia. Caesar, I never stood on ceremonies. 

Yet now they fright me. There is one within. 

Besides the things that we have heard and seen, 

Recounts most horrid sights seen by the watch. 

A lioness hath whelped in the streets, 

And graves have yawn'd, and yielded up their dead : 

Fierce fiery warriors fight upon the clouds. 

In ranks, and squadrons, and right form of war, 

Which drizzled blood upon the Capitol : 

The noise of battle hurtled in the air. 

Horses did neigh, and dying men did groan ; 

And ghosts did shriek, and squeal about the streets. 

O Cassar ! these things are beyond all use, 

And I do fear them. 

C^s. What can be avoided. 

Whose end is purposed by the mighty gods ? 
Yet Csesar shall go forth : for these predictions 
Are to the world in general, as to Csesar. 

Cal. W/ien heggars die, there are no comets seen. 

The heavens themselves hlaze forth the death of princes. 

Qms. Cowards die many times before their deaths ; 
The valiant never taste of death but once. 
Of all the wonders that I yet have heard, 
It seems to me most strange that men should fear ; 
Seeing that death, a necessary end, 
Will come, when it will come. 

Nevertheless, Csesar, in his sublime wilfulness, goes forth, and 
holds his levee in the Senate House. The conspirators make 
their opportunity to slay him, by pleading for the repeal of 
banishment against the brother of Metellus Cimber, one of their 
number. Metellus puts the first appeal. He is followed by 
Brutus and Cassius, who, considering their pretensions and the 
dark purpose which animates their hearts, address him in a not 
very worthy manner : — 

Beu. I kiss thy hand, but not in flattery, Caesar ; 

Desiring thee, that Publius Cimber may 

Have an immediate freedom of repeal. 
C^s. What, Brutus ! 
Cas. Pardon, Caesar : Csesar, pardon ; 

As low as to thy foot doth Cassius fall, 

To beg enfranchisement for Publius Cimber. 
24 



35 B Shakespeare, from an American Point of V^iew. 

C^s. I could be well moved, if I were as you ; 

If I could pray to move, prayers would move me ; 

But I am constant as the northern star, 

Of whose true-fix'd and resting quality 

There is no fellow in the firmament. 

The skies are painted with unnumber'd sparks. 

They are all fire, and every one doth shine ; 

But there's but one in all doth hold his place : 

So, in the world : 'Tis furnish'd well with men. 

And men are flesh and blood, and apprehensive 

Yet, in the number, I do know but one 

That unassailable holds on his rank. 

Unshaked of motion : and, that I am he. 

Let me a little show it, even in this ; 

That I was constant, Cimber should be banish'd. 

And constant do remain to keep him so. 
CiN. O Csesar, — 

C^s. Hence ! Wilt thou lift up Olympus ? 

Dec. Great Caesar, — 

C^s. Doth not Brutus bootless kneel ? 

Casca. Speak, hands, for me. 

[Casca stabs C^sae in the necJc. C^sae catches hold of 
his arm, H.e is then stahhed by several other Con- 
spirators, and at last by Maectts Beutus. 
C^s. Et tu, Brute ? Then fall, C^sar. 

[JDies. The senators and people retire in confusion. 
CiN. Liberty ! Freedom ! Tyranny is dead ! 

Eun hence, proclaim, cry it about the streets. 
Cas. Some to the common pulpits, and cry out, 

Liberty , freedom, enfranchisement ! 
Bett. People, and senators ! be not affrighted ; 

Fly not ; stand still : — ambition's debt is paid. 

Then follow the wonderful appeals made by Brutus and Mark 
Antony to the people^ in which the masses are represented by 
our author to be base^ ignorant, and changeful (accordingly as they 
are swayed by the accents of the respective orators), and he 
makes them wind up by tearing to pieces a harmless poet who 
goes by, because he happens to bear the name of one of the 
conspirators. It will be perceived by the last of the above 
extracts, that it is Casca, the bitter contemner of the labouring 
classes, and Cinna, and not Brutus or Cassius, who utter these 
misleading cries for liberty, only to inflame and mislead the People. 

Another poet is introduced in the Fourth Act, at the end of 
the famous quarrel between Brutus and Cassius, who, though he 



^* Antony and Cleopatra." 359 

forces himself upon them with the worthy purpose of reconciling 
the angry' conflict between the two kinsmen, is most con- 
temptuously received, and ignominiously disposed of : — 

Enter PoEX. 
Cas. How now P What's the matter ? 
Poet. For shame, you generals ; What do you mean ? 

Love, and be friends, as two such men should be : 

For I have seen more years, T am sure, than ye. 
Cas. Ha, ha ; how vilely doth this cynic rhyme ! 
Beu. Get you hence, sirrah ; saucy fellow, hence. 
Cas. Bear with him, Brutus ; 'tis his fashion. 
Beu. I'll know his humour, when he knows his time : 

What should the wars do with these jingling fools ? 

Companion, hence. 
Cas. Away, away, be gone. \Exit Poet. 

It is difficult to conceive what object Shakespeare has in 
snubbing this innocent mediator, except it be, as in Timon of 
Athens, to degrade the occupation of a poet. This might be 
natural in Bacon, but it seems very strange in Shakespeare ; 
therefore, as far as it goes, it scores a point, light though it be, 
for the Baconians. 

At the end of the fourth act, Mark Antony, taking advantage 
of the success which he has gained through his oration to the 
people, makes a political combination with Octavius Csesar, a son 
of Csesar's niece, whom he had made his heir, and with Lepidus, 
Caesar's Master of Horse, these three declared themselves, in 
triplicate, the masters of the world. In the fifth act, Brutus and 
Cassius (according to the play) raise an army to confront the new 
triumvirs. The general conflict takes place at Philippi, where 
Brutus and Cassius, being defeated, commit suicide by falling 
upon their own swords. No Catholic scruple is here interposed 
by Shakespeare as to " the canon •'gainst self slaughter,'" so it 
might seem that our poet, after all his preference for Brutus, 
intends that rebellion, even for any form of liberty, shall be 
punished by endless torment in a future state. Lord Campbell 
finds no evidences in Julius Csesar of the legal acquirements of 
Shakespeare. 



ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 



This play contributes but little to our inquiry. It was 
probably written in immediate connexion with " Julius Csesar " 



360 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

and " Coriolanus/' and it carries the fortunes of Antony to their 
melancholy close. It consists of one long revel of luxury and 
passion with Cleopatra, that '' serpent of old Nile/' who, having 
been, in turn, the mistress of Pompey and of Csesar, died for 
Antony. 

The first phrase we find worthy of our attention occurs in 
Scene 2 of Act I. : — 

Antony. Our slippery people 

(Whose love is never link'd to the deserver, 

Till his deserts are past) begin to throw 

Pompey the Great, and all his dignities. 

Upon his son. 
OCTAVITTS C^SAE. Let US grant, it is not 

Amiss to tumble on the bed of Ptolemy, 

To give a kingdom for a mirth : to sit 

And keep the turn of tippling with a slave ; 

To reel the streets at noon, and stand the buffet 

With knaves that smell of sweat : ssij, this becomes him. 
# * * 

This common hody 
Like to a vagabond flag upon the stream. 
Goes to, and back, and lackeying the varying tide, 
To rot itself with motion. 

Act I. Scene 2. 
Pompey. What was it, 

That moved pale Cassius to conspire ? And what 
Made the all-honour'd, honest, Eoman Brutus, 
With the arm'd rest, courteous of beauteous freedom, 
To drench the Capitol, but that they would 
Have one man but a man ? 

Act II. Scene 6. 

This is only the same beauteous freedom of which we have heard 
Brutus and Cassius and Casca and Cinna discourse before. It 
simply means freedom for nobles from a king, and is no nearer 
true political freedom than the howl for liberty which Caliban 
set up in " The Tempest " was akin to an aspiration for popular 
enfranchisement. The liberty which the island monster sighed 
for was release from dtirance, such as might have been yearned 
for by a galley slave. I mention this latter illustration only, 
because it is one of the four instances in which Shakespeare 
permits the words " liberty " and " freedom ■'■' to slip from his 
pen. In Act IV. Scene 4j an officer in Antony's palace remarks 
to Antony : — 



" Antony and Cleopatra" 361 

The morn is fair. — Good morrow, General. 

My remark upon this is^ tliat the morn is always fair in Egypt. 
I am assured by Egyptians that it never rains above Cairo/ on 
the Nile^ and so seldom at Alexandria — say six or seven times 
a year — that a fair sky is not a matter for remark. Bacon 
would not have fallen into this mistake. 

Enobaebus {a follower of Antony, wJio Jias deserted Mm). 
Let the world rank me in register 
A master-leaver, and a fugitive. 

Act IV. Scene 9. 

gp gp ^ 

Antony (^0 Cleopatea). Ah, tliou spell ! Avaunt! 

Cleo. Why is my lord enraged against his love ? 
Ant. Vanish, or I shall give thee thy deserving. 

And blemish Caesar's triumph. Let him take thee, 
And hoist thee ttp to the shouting plebeians : 
Follow his chariot, like the greatest spot 
Of all thy sex ; most monster-like, be shown 
For poor'st diminutives, for doits ; and let 
Patient Octavia plough thy visage up 

With her prepared nails. \_ExU Cleo. 

'Tis well thou'rt gone. 

Act IV. Scene 10. 
* * * 

Cleopatea. Now, Iras, what think'st thou ? 

Thou, an Egyptian puppet, shall be shown 
In Rome, as well as I : mechanic slaves 
With greasy aprons, rules, and hammers shall 
Uplift us to the view ; in their thich breaths 
S,anJc loith gross diet, shall we be enclouded 
And forced to drink their vapour. 

Act V. Scene 2. 

And here falls the veil upon this astounding drama, leaving 
Cbopatra to be added to Cressida_, as the only two completed 
female portraitures that Shakespeare ever drew. They were not 
portraitures from the cold and studied pen of Bacon, but such 

® Old residents of Egypt will tell us that it never rains at Cairo, and so 
they told me when I was there, in the winter of 1870; but, unfortunately for 
the exactness of the statement, I was caught in a smart shower in Cairo, in 
March o£ that year, and was pretty well wet through. It lasted but a few 
minutes, it is true, but I was generally assured afterwards that such a thing 
had not happened for years before — the usual assurance in all countries of the 
" oldest inhabitant." 



362 Shakespeare, from an American Poi7it of View, 

only as could have sprung- from the singular experience of a man 
of Shakespeare's life and nature. 



LEGAL EVIDENCES. 



In searching this play for evidences of the legal acquirements 
of Shakespeare, Lord Campbell remarks : — 

*^ In Julius Caesar I could not find a single instance of a Roman 
being made to talk like an English lawyer ; but in Antony and 
Cleopatra (Act I. Scene 4) Lepidus, in trying to palliate the 
bad qualities and misdeeds of Antony, iTses the language of a 
conveyancer's chambers in Lincoln's Inn : — 

His faults, in him, seem as the spots of heaven, 
More fiery by night's blackness ; hereditary 
Eather than piircliaseA. 

That is to say, they are taken by descent, not hj purchase." 

Lai/ gents (viz., all except lawyers) understand by ^^ purchase," 
buying for a sum of money, called the price ; but lawyers 
consider that " purchase is opposed to descent — that all things 
come to the owner either by descent or purchase, and that what- 
ever does not come through operation of law by descent is 
purchased, although it may be the free gift of a donor. Thus, if 
land be devised by will to A. in fee, he takes hj purchase, or to 
B. for life, remainder to A. and his heirs, B., being a stranger to 
A., A. takes hj purchase ; but upon the death of A., his eldest 
son would take by descent. 

English lawyers sometimes use these terms metaphorically, 
like Lepidus. Thus a law lord, who has sufiered much from 
hereditary gout, although very temperate in his habits, says, " I 
take it by descent, not by purchase." Again, Lord Chancellor 
Eldon, a very bad shot, having insisted on going out quite alone 
to shoot, and boasted of the heavy bag of game which he had 
brought homCj Lord Stowell, insinuating that he had filled it 
with game bought from a poacher, used to say, " My brother 
takes his game — not by descent, but h^— purchase ;" — this being 
a pendant to another joke Lord Stowell was fond of: "My 
brother, the Chancellor, in vacation goes out with his gun to 
kill— time.'' 



Othelio " 36; 



CHAPTER XXXIV. 



OTHELLO. 



The period of the authorsliip of this mighty production of our 
poet's genius, is set down with tolerable certainty at 1604 — 
in close connexion with " Hamlet/' " Julius Casar/'' " Macbeth/-' 
and '' Lear." " Around the year 1600/' says Dowden, " are 
grouped some of the most mirthful comedies that Shakespeare 
ever wrote. Then a little later, as soon as '' Hamlet ' is completed, 
all changes. From 1604 to 1610 a show of tragic figures, like 
the kings who passed before Macbeth, filled the vision of Shake- 
peare. * * * Having created ' Othello,' surely the eye of the 
poet's mind would demand quietude, passive acceptance of some 
calm beauty, a period of restoration. But ' Othello ' is pursued by 
' Lear,' ' Lear ' by ' Macbeth/ ' Macbeth ' by ' Antony and Cleo- 
patra,' and that by ' Coriolanus.' It is evident that now the 
artist was completely aroused." 

The story of " Othello " was taken from the Italian of Giraldo 
Cinthio, but Shakespeare cannot be said to be indebted to its 
original author for more than a thin line of narrative, which any 
one of an hundred of the writers of his time, might easily have 
conceived without much effort. He created all the characters, 
infused all the passion_, supplied all the imagery, and, to use the 
language of M. Guizot, imparted to the dramatis personse " that 
creative breath, which breathing over the past, calls it again 
into being, and fills it with a present and imperishable life ; this 
was the power which Shakespeare alone possessed, and by which, 
out of a forgotten novel, he has made ' Othello.' " 

Though our poet names Othello as a Moor, he has not 
indicated the particular country of his birth ; but he seems, by a 
casual allusion in the fourth act, to assign him to Mauritania, 
in Northern Africa : — 

RoDEEiGO. Why then Othello and Desdemona return again to Venice ? 



364 Shakespeare^ from an American Point of View. 

Iago. 0, no ; he goes into Mauritania, and taketli away witli him the fair 
Desdemoua ; unless his ahode he lingered here by some accident. 
In that torrid region the fiery warrior acquired his boiling- tem- 
perament and his fervid imagination ; and^ in its wars and the 
personal successes of those wars, he gradually acquired that bar- 
baric ease of bearing and consciousness of power, which makes 
his character, in a dramatic view, so exceedingly alluring. 

His military merits must have become familiar to the sur- 
rounding States, and having, probably, been greatly honoured 
by Venice for some victories, when possibly he had been acting 
as her ally, he seems to have taken the fancy to transplant his 
fortunes to Italy and become a Christian. This led to his ap- 
pointment as a general in the Venetian army, and to the sub- 
sequent responsibility of the defence of Cyprus, against a 
threatened descent upon it by an armada of the Turks. Previous 
to receiving this command, Othello had been living in Venice ; 
and, to judge from more than one allusion in the play, must have 
been, when the scene opens, well advanced in years — certainly 
twice, the most likely thrice, the age of the susceptible and 
gentle Desdemona. 

This fact, along with his barbaric origin and dingy colour, 
lead up to the terrible catastrophe and bloody moral which the 
story levels against ill-assorted marriages. Such was Othello. 
Desdemona, on the other hand, was a scion of one of the highest, 
wealthiest, and most choicely- derived patrician families of Venice. 
Her father, Brabantio, was the most conspicuous of the Venetian 
senators, close in the counsel of the Duke, and, it would appear, 
from Roderigo^s case, that he held Desdemona very jealously aloof 
from even the most eligible young nobles of the time, so there 
should be no likelihood of her making a mesalliance, or of form- 
ing any attachment without his scrunity and patronage. This 
exceeding carefulness by Brabantio, against the young gallants of 
Venice, does not seem, however, to have taken the least alarm at 
the visits of the old, scarred, dusky Moorish general, who, 
according to the language of his own incomparable defence before 
the Senate, seems to have had the unrestricted run of Braban- 
tio's house. This state of things resulted in one of those amorous 
episodes which fill the history of human passion, and which, 
though they come about naturally enough, and are often, as in 
this case, entirely honest, are but too apt to take an oblique turn 



" Othellor 365 

from the latent wilfulness of the fresher nature_, and to run to 
a troubled termination. I should judge, from what Othello 
twice says of himself, that he was somewhere in the neighbour- 
hood of fifty-five, perhaps sixty years of age ; and it must be 
noted that Shakespeare, when he produced this play was himself 
forty, and Bacon forty-four. Men at these periods of life do not 
usually make themselves older than they really are, or regard 
fifty, or fifty-five, as ^' the vale of years.^-* It may be said, more- 
over, so far as Othello is concerned, that he could not have been 
very handsome in his features, from the term " thick lips " which 
is applied to him by Roderigo in the first scene of the first 
act ; and, also, from the fact that lago, in the latter part of the 
same scene, terms him '' an old black ram.-*^ 

Othello. Haply, for I am llacTc, 

And have not those soft parts of conversation 
That chamherers have : Or, for I am declined 
Into the vale of years. 

As to Desdemona^s age, it is reasonable to suppose from what 
we know of the customs of the Italians of the fifteenth century, 
that she was probably about fifteen, Juliet, it will be re- 
collected, was married to Eomeo and affianced to Paris, when 
not fourteen. 

Here we have these contrasted yet agreeing natures of Othello 
and Desdemona, enjoying too much opportunity in Brabantio's 
house. He, barbaresque, tropical, phosphoric, and of grand mas- 
culinity of form ; she soft, imaginative, childlike, and susceptible 
— the opportunity came on some languid afternoon, and their 
expanding souls, guided by no guile and steered by no purpose, 
had magnetic contact, and blending suddenly, became the victims 
of each other. Desdemona, it is true, was a pattern of purity and 
she died innocent ; but it is doubtful if she could long have re- 
mained so ; for, under the incongruities of her case, and with such 
an unscrupulous tutoress as Emilia at her elbow,^ her fate would 
probably have been a mere question of time. The love between 
her and Othello was merely an animal fascination, after all. 

lago, with his clear penetrating knowledge of the world, under- 
stood this state of things, and he also thoroughly knew the 

^ See the dialogue between Desdemona and Emilia at the end of the 
fourth act. 



366 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

respective natures of Desdemona and Othello. In fact^ no man 
of common penetration could fail to understand the amorous wil- 
fulness of Desdemona, if only from her bold statement before the 
full gaze of the Senate, when she threw off the authority of her 
father, for that of her clandestinely-acquired dusky husband. 

Des. That I did love the Moor to live with him, 
My downright violence and scorn of fortunes 
May trumpet in the world : my heart's subdued 
Even to the very quality of my lord : 
I saw Othello's visage in his mind : 
And to his honours, and his valiant parts, 
Did I my soul and fortunes consecrate. 

So that in view of this girlish wilfulness, lago felt himself 
warranted in advising Roderigo (whose proposals for the hand of 
Desdemona had been rejected by Brabantio) to still pursue her, 
for her love, notwithstanding she had become a wife : — 

Iago {to EoDEBiGo). It cannot be, that Desdemona should long continue 
her love to the Moor, — put money in thy purse ; — nor he his to her : it was a 
violent commencement, and thou shalt see an answerable sequestration ; — put 
but money in thy purse. — These Moors are changeable in their wills ; — fill 
thy purse with money ; the food that to him now is as luscious as locusts, 
shall be to him shortly as bitter as coloquintida. She must change for youth : 
when she is sated with his body, she will find the error of her choice. — She 
must have change, she must : — Therefore put money in thy purse. — If thou 
wilt needs damn thyself, do it a more delicate way than drowning. Make 
all the money thou canst : If sanctimony and a frail vow, betwixt an erring 
Barbarian and a supersubtle Venetian, be not too hard for my wits, and 
all the tribe of hell, thou shalt enjoy her; therefore, make money. Seek 
thou rather to be hanged in compassing thy joy, than to be drowned and go 
without her. 

And again, in the same vein of philosophy, Iago says to 
Roderigo, — 

Iago. Lay thy finger — thus, and let thy soul be instructed. Mark me 
with what violence she first loved the Moor, but for bragging, and telling her 
fantastical lies : And will she love him still for prating ? let not thy discreet 
heart think it. Her eye must be fed ; and what delight shall she have to 
look on the devil? When the blood is made dull with the act of sport, there 
should be, — again to inflame it, and to give satiety a fresh appetite, — loveli- 
ness in favour ; sj^mpathy in j^ears, manners and beauties ; all which the Moor 
is defective in : Now, for want of these required conveniences, her delicate 
tenderness will find itself abused, begin to heave the gorge, disrelish and 
abhor the Moor ; very nature will instruct her in it, and compel her to some 
second choice. 



" Othello:* 367 

EoD. I cannot believe tliat in her ; she is full of most blessed condition. 
lAao. Blessed fig's end ! the wine she drinks is made of grapes ; if she had 
been blessed, she would never have loved the Moor. 

It is quite true that the whole of this argument of lago is 
intended to deceive and plunder Roderig-o; but it is entirely 
consistent with the language of the ancient^s soliloquies. lago 
is the character most subtly and artistically drawn of any in the 
piece; though to Othello is imparted more imagination and 
loftiness of tone. Both, however^ act in the main from the same 
impulse — -jealousy. The difference, in the morale of their 
motive is, that one proceeds to his revenge from an honest and 
irresistable sense of wrong, which never contemplates extending 
its punishment beyond the wronger; while, the plots of the 
other are mixed with calculations of self-interest, and he con- 
spires equally against the innocent and the guilty, whenever the 
destruction of the former is necessary to his plans. 

In the first place, lago, who is a soldier of intellect, much 
service, and recognized military capacity, has been defeated in his 
application for chief of staff under Othello, by " one Michael 
Cassio,''' a mere book soldier, who, to use lago's own lan- 
guage— , 

Never set squadron in the tented field, 
Nor the division of a battle knew 
More than a spinster. 

We have thus, for lago^s first motive against Othello, a sense 
of injustice, and a consequent jealousy of Cassio. In his soliloquy 
at the end of the first act, we see his second motive to be sexual 
jealousy, pure and simple, against both Cassio and Othello : — 

I hate the Moor ; 
And it is thought abroad, that 'twixt my sheets 
He has done my office. I know not if 't be true ; 
But I, for mere suspicion in that kind, 
Will do, as if for surety. 

And again, in Scene 1 of Act II. : — 

'Iago. That Cassio loves her, I do well believe it ; 

That she loves him, 'tis apt, and of great credit : 
The Moor — howbeit that I endure him not, — 
Is of a constant, loving, noble nature ; 
And, I dare think, he'll prove to Desdemcna 



368 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

A most dear husband. Now I do love her too : 
Not out of absolute lust, (though, peradventure 
I stand accountant for as great a sin,) 
But partly led to diet my revenge 
^or that I do suspect the lusty Moot 
Hath leap'd into my seat; the thought whereof 
Doth, like a poisonous mineral, hnaw my inwards ; 
, And nothing can or shall content my soul. 
Till I am even toith him, wife for ivife ; 
Or, failing so, yet that I put the Moor 
At least into a jealousy so strong 
That judgment cannot cure. Which thing to do, — 
If this poor trash of Venice, whom I thrash 
For his quick hunting, stand the putting on, 
I'll have our Michael Cassio on the hip ; 
Abuse him to the Moor in the rank garb, — 
. For I fear Cassio with my night-cap too. 

Here we find an equal depth and intensity of motive on the 
part of lago against Othello and also against Cassio, as Othello 
has, on his part, against Cassio and Desdemona. 

It is not my province, under the limited task I have assumed, 
to trace the Moore's jealousy through all of its feverish passages, 
nor to compare it with the cooler, more stoical, but no less pro- 
found, jealousy of lago ; but I may notice here, that we have 
evidence, in Shakespeare's Sonnets, that our bard had reason to 
be versed in all the variations of that passion, under the 
capricious vagaries of a certain black-eyed Messalina, who toyed 
with the mighty Etna of his soul, without having any true com- 
prehension of its fires, or of her own ignorant audacity, in deal- 
ing with them.^ I may be allowed to remark, moreover, that 
my opinion differs with those of all others I have seen, as to the 
real and immediate motive of Othello's murder of Desdemona. 
Coleridge has made the observation (which Dowden thinks so 
true, that he says all the critics have been obliged to repeat it), 

2 Except to his succumbing to the fascinations of a dark-eyed and dark- 
haired woman who excelled in music, and (as Mrs. Jameson delicately puts it) 
" was one of a class of females who do not always lose all their claim to the 

admiration of the sex who wronged them one who was false, fickle, 

and hnmon to him to be a traitress, even to the guilty love he entertained 
for her and she had feigned for him; one for whom he endured the pangs of 
agony, the pain of shame, the grief of self-reproach, and the terrible emotions 
of jealousy." — " Shakespeare's Character and Early Career," British Quar- 
terly Review for July, 1875. 



" Othellor 369 

that " the passion of the Moor is not altogether jealousy^ hut 
rather the agony of heing compelled to hate that which he 
supremely loved/' This I admit to be very near the truth — in- 
deed, quite true, as far as it goes ; but it does not go quite far 
enough. The main misery of the Moor was, that his proud, 
sensitive, and selfish nature felt, not only that he had been 
wronged by Desdemona, but that his wrong had become hnown to 
others, and that he had been made — 

The fixed figure for tlie hand of Scorn 
To point his slow and moving finger at. 

Had no one known of her offence, so that he could, in his mad 
love and furious tenderness have seized her in his arms, and, 
bidding a wild farewell to the observing world, have borne her 
away to some jungle in Mauritania, he might there have sobbed 
and throbbed away his still doting life, in cursing and pitying 
her crime. But lago knew it, and Cassio (as he thought) also 
knew it, and the high-strung soul which, under the mediating 
influences of love, might still have been capable of compromise, 
but which knew nothing of stoicism or philosophy, slaughtered 
the wronger, for the wound which had been inflicted on his 
pride. 

Without arguing this point further, I submit the following as 



arguing it for me : — ' 



Act III. Scene 3. 



Iago {alone). The Moor already changes with my poison : — 

Dangerous conceits are, in their natures, poisons, 

Which, at the first, are scarce found to distaste ; 

But, with a little act upon the blood, 

Burn like the mines of sulphur. — • 
JEnter Othello. 

Look, where he comes ! Not poppy, nor mandragora, 

Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world. 

Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep 

Which thou ow'dst yesterday. 
0th. Ha ! ha ! false to me ? 

To me ? 
'Iago. Why, how now, general? no more of that. 
0th. Avaunt ! be gone ! thou hast set me on the rack : — 

I swear, 't is better to he much abused. 

Than hut to hnoxv 't a little, 
Iago. How now, my lord ? 



370 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

0th. What sense liad I of her stolen hours of lust? 

I saw it not, thought it not, it harm'd not me : 

I slept the next night well, was free and merry ; 

I found not Cassio's kisses on her lips ; 

He that is robb'd, not wanting what is stolen. 

Let him not Jcnow it, and he's not rohb'd at all. 
Iago. I am sorry to hear this. 
0th. I had been happy, if the general camp, ^ 

Pioneers and all, had tasted her sweet body, 

So I had nothing Jcnoion : O now, for ever, 

Farewell the tranquil mind ! farewell content ! 

Farewell the plumed troop, and the big wars. 

That make ambition virtue ! O, farewell ! 

Farewell the neighing steed, and the shriU trump. 

The spirit-stirring drum, the ear-piercing fife, 

The royal banner ; and all quality. 

Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war ! 

And you mortal engines, whose rude throats 

The immortal Jove's dread clamours counterfeit. 

Farewell ! Othello's occupation's gone ! 

Again, in Act IV. Scene 1 : — 

Iago. So they do nothing, 'tis a venial slip : 

But if I give my wife a handkerchief. — 
0th. What then? 
Iago. Why, then 'tis hers, my lord ; and, being hers, 

She may, I think, bestow't on any man. 
Oth. She is protectress of her honour too ; 

May she give that? 
Iago. Her bonour is an essence that's not seen ; 

They have it very oft, that have it not : 

But, for the handkei'chief, 

Oth. 'Bj heskven, I would most gladly have forgot it : — 

Thou said'st, — O, it comes o'er my memory, 

As doth the raven o'er the infected house, 

Soding to all : he had my handkerchief. 

Again, in the same Act :- — 

Oth. I would have him nine j^ears a killing : — 

A fine woman! a fair woman ! a sweet woman ! 
Iago. Nay, you must forget that. 
Oth. Ay, let her rot, and perish, and be damned to-night ; for she shall 
not live : No, my heart is turned to stone ; I strike it, and it hurts my hand. 
O, the world hath not a sweeter creature : she might lie by an emperor's side, 
and command him tasTcs. 

Iago. Nay, that's not your way. 

Oth. Hang her ! I do but say what she is : — So delicate with her needle ! 



" Othellor 



371 



— An admirable musician ! 0, she will sing the savageness out of a bear ! — 
Of so high and plenteous wit and invention ! 

Iago. She's the worse for all this. 

OrH. 0, a thousand, a thousand times : — And then, of so gentle a con- 
dition ! 

Iago. Ay, too gentle. 

0th. Nay, that's certain : Biit yet the fity of it, Iago I — 0, Iago, the 
pity of it, Iago ! 

Iago. If you are so fond over her iniquity, give her patent to offend j for 
if it touch not you, it comes near nobody. 

0th. I will chop her into messes. — Cuckold me I 

Iago. ! 'tis foul in her. 

0th. With mine officer ! 

Iago. That's fouler. 

0th. Get me some poison, Iago ; this night : — I'll not expostulate with 
her, lest her body and beauty unprovide my mind again. This night, Iago. 

Iago. Do it not with poison, strangle her in her bed, even the bed she hath 
contaminated. 

0th. Good, good ; the justice of it pleases ; very good. 

Iago. And for Cassio, let me be his undertaker. You shall hear more by 
midnight. 

The next thing which commands our attention in the tragedy 
of " Othello/^ is the Roman Catholic tone involuntarily emitted 
by our poet, in various portions of the text. The first of these 
instances occurs in a soliloquy by Iago, near the end of the 
second act : — 

And then for her 
To win the Moor — were't to renounce his baptism, 
All seals and symbols of redeemed sin — 
His soul is so enfetter 'd to her love, 
That she may make, unmake, do what she list. 
Even as her appetite shall play the god 
With his weak function. 

This is a declaration that, though the Moor had embraced 
Christianity, he would renounce his baptism and all the other 
sacraments, seals, and symbols of his faith, such as the cross, 
rosary, &c., if Desdemona should command him. 

Baptism forgives original sin, according to Roman Catholic 
doctrine, and when administered to adults it is a seal of absolute 
redemption. Othello could not have been married to Desdemona 
in Venice without having been made a Christian and a Catholic. 
But for his having been fast married, Brabantio would have 
easily I'ecovered his daughter; for the text shows that no con- 



372 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

summation of tlie marriage had taken place at tlie time of 
Othello^s arraignment before the Senate. 

Again, in the third act (Scene 4), Othello in the simmering 
prologue of his jealousy, takes Desdemona's hand, and studying 
its palm, makes use of the following purely Catholic expres- 
sions: — 

This hand of yours requires 

A sequester from liberty, fasting, and prayer, 

Iluch castigation, exercise devout ; 

For here's a young and sweating devil here, 

That comnaonly rebels. 

Again, — 

That handkerchief 

The worms were Jiallotoed that did breed the silk. 

In the last scene, the bidding of Desdemona to prepare for 
death by prayer and by confession, is very Catholic. Also the 
exclamation of Othello to Emilia : — 

You, mistress, 
That have tke office opposite to St, Peter, 
And keep the gate of hell. 

Othello's last speech is full of Catholic ideas, such, for in- 
stance, as the reference to Judas in the lines alluding to Christ : — 

Like the base Judean, threw a pearl away, 
Richer than all his tribe. 

To conclude, it is not certain but that Shakespeare intended 
Othello should be a negro. In the sixteenth century, all 
the dark-skinned races were called Moors in England, which 
term was made more expressive by being familiarized into 
blackamoor. Curiously enough, the historical Othello was not 
a Moor at all. He was a white man who held the position of a 
Venetian general, and was named Mora, which Giraldo Cinthio, 
probably, for better effect, made into Moro, which in time 
became Moor or blackamoor.^ The white Othello murdered his 
wife under' much the same circumstances as Shakespeare's 
Othello killed Desdemona ; but, in the first case, the floor of the 
murdered woman's room was made to sink away, and a beam to 

* " The Stage in Italy," by E. Davey, in Lippincott's Magazine for 
January, 1875. 



''Oi/iello." 2>7Z 

fall across her body, and then, for a still further concealment of 
the crime, the house was set on fire. It was Giraldo Cinthio, 
who, finding" this storj to his hand, turned the white hero of this 
terrific drama into a Moor; and Shakespeare, making a step 
further into the morass with which the infatuated Desdemona 
had complicated her unhappy fortunes, terms him, in portions of 
his text, a black. Hunter, however, interprets Shakespeare^s 
use of this descriptive word to mean no more than veri/ dark, 
and this only as in comparison with the fair European. " The 
word Moor," adds Hunter, " was used by English writers very 
extensively, and all the dark races seem by some writers to be 
comprehended under it,— Sir Thomas Elyot calling- even the 
Ethiopians, Moors. A distinction was made, however, between 
black Moors and white Moors.-'^ ^ 

One thing" is certain, that Shakespeare made his attractive 
hero black enough to be a shocking and repulsive contrast to the 
fair, confiding", and unsophisticated girl whom he unworthily 
tempted from her filial duty and her Caucasian compatibilities. 
The paternal confidence which he violated to obtain possession 
of her is shown by the rage of his patron Brabantio, when he 
exclaims, — 

0, tHou foul thief, where hast thou stow'd my daughter ? 

While the full extent of the incongruity of the alliance, and of 
Othello^s breach of confidence, may be seen by the fact that 
Brabantio charges, and cannot help believing, that the ruin of 
his daughter must have been brought about by drugs, charms, or 
sorcery. Finally, when Desdemona confesses her infatuation, as 
a thing of her own deliberate will, the unhappy father dies of a 
broken heart, — not, however, without uttering the warning : — 

Look to her, Moor, if thou hast eyes to see : 
She has deceived her father, and may thee. 

In every point of view this match of the lovely Desdemona 
with the old black man, has been revolting to modern audiences, 
and there is no sense in which it is more repulsive than the 
violence which it inflicts upon the wholesome laws of breeding. 
These laws are more strictly observed in England, perhaps, than 

* Hunter's " Illustrations of the Life, Studies, and Writings of Shake- 
speare," vol. iv. pp. 280, 281. 
25 



3 74 Shakespeare^ from an American Point of View. 

anywhere else ; but Shakespeare^ in his abounding- and unceasing 
love for royalty^ probably thought he made ample atonement and 
offset to the prejudice against colour^ by representing his black 
man as descending from a line of kings : — 

'Tis yet to know, 
(Which when I know that boasting is an honour 
I shall promulgate), I fetch my life and being 
Erom men of royal siege ; and my demerits 
May speak, unbonneted, to as proud a fortune 
As this that I have reached. 



SHAKESPEAEE S LEGAL ACQUIREMENTS. 

Lord Campbell finds the tragedy of "Othello^'' full of 
evidences that Shakespeare might either have been a lawyer^ or 
have served as an attorney's clerk. 

" In the very first scene of this play/' says his lordship, " is 
a striking instance of Shakespeare's proneness to legal phraseo- 
logy; where lago, giving an explanation to Roderigo of the 
manner in which he had been disappointed in not obtaining the 
place of Othello's lieutenant, notwithstanding the solicitations in 
his favour of ' three great ones of the city/ says, — 

But he, as loving his own pride and purposes. 
Evades them with a bombast circumstance 
Horribly stuff'd with epithets of war. 
And, in conclusion. 
Nonsuits my mediators. 

" Nonsuiting is known to the learned to be the most disre- 
putable and mortifying mode of being beaten : it indicates that 
the action is wholly unfounded on the plaintiff's own show- 
ing", or that there is a fatal defect in the manner in which his 
case has been got up. 

" In the next scene Shakespeare gives us very distinct proof 
that he was acquainted with Admiralty law, as well as with the 
procedure of Westminster Hall. Describing the feat of the 
Moor in carrying off Desdemona against her father's consent, 
which might either make or mar his fortune, according" as the 
act might be sanctioned or nullified, lago observes, — 

Faith, he to-night hath boarded a land carack : 
If it prove latoful prize, he's made for ever ; 



" Othello r 375 

tlie trope indicating" that there would be a suit in the High 
Court of Admiralty to determine the validity of the capture. 

'^ Then follows, in Act I. Scene 3, the trial of Othello before 
the Senate, as if he had been indicted on Stat. 33 Henry VII., 
c. 8, for practising ' conjuration, witchcraft, enchantment, and 
sorcery, to provoke to unlawful love.^ Brabantio, the prosecutor, 
says,— 

She is abused, stol'n from me, and corrupted 
Bj' spells and medicines bought of mountebanks ; 

For nature so preposterously to err 

Sans witchcraft could not. 

"The presiding judge at first seems alarmingly to favour the 
prosecutor, saying, — 

Duke. Whoe'er he be that in this foul proceeding 

Hath thus beguiled your daughter of herself, 
And you of her, the bloody book of law 
You shall yourself read, in the bitter letter, 
After your own sense. 

"The Moor, although acting as his own counsel, makes a 
noble and skilful defence, directly meeting the statutable mis- 
demeanour with which he is charged, and referring pointedly to 
the very words of the indictment and the Act or Parliament : — 

I will a round unvarnish'd tale deliver 
Of my whole course of love ; \vhat drugs, what charms^ 
W kat conjuration, and what mighty magic 
(For such proceedings I am charged withal) 
I won his daughter with. 

" Having fully opened his case, showing that he had used no 
forbidden arts, and having explained the course which he had 
lawfully pursued, he says, in conclusion, — 

This only is the witchcraft I have used : 
Here comes the lady — let her witness it. 

" He then examines the witness, and is honourably acquitted. 

" Again, the application to Othello to forgive Cassio is made 
to afesume the shape of a juridical proceeding. Thus Desdemona 
concludes her address to Cassio, assuring him of her zeal as his 
solicitor, — 

I'll intermingle everything he does 

With Cassio's suit : Therefore be merry, Cassio ; 



376 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

Eor thy solicitor shall rather die 

Than give thy cause away. Act III. Scene 3. 

" The subsequent part of the same scene shows that Shake- 
speare was well acquainted with all courts, low as well as high ; 
where lago asks, — 

Who has a breast so pure 
But some uncleanly apprehensions 
Keep leets and laio-Aays, and in session sit 
With meditations lawful ? " 

Here terminates the evidences of Shakespeare's legal acquire- 
ments as detected by his lordship in " Othello." I do not hold 
them to be of any force in the sense his lordship indicates, but, 
while he was busied in his search, he might as well have added 
the following speech by Desdemona, in Act III. Scene 4 : — 

Beshrew me much, Emilia, 
I was (unhandsome warrior as I am), 
Arraigning his unkindness with my soul ; 
But now I find I had suborn d the icitness. 
And he's indicted falsely. 

This was probably overlooked by his lordship. 



^'^ King Lear r 377 



CHAPTEE XXXV. 

"king lear/^ 

There is no play of Shakespeare^s which has elicited more com- 
ment from the critics than the tragedy of " Lear/^ and among the 
Germans it is largely regarded as our poet's masterpiece. No 
one disputes that it is to be classed with the mightiest efforts of 
his brain, and to be ranked on an equal plane with Hamlet, 
Othello, Troilus, and Macbeth. 

" The myth of King Lear and his three daughters/' says Ger- 
vinius, " is related by Geoffrey of Monmouth, who places the 
death of this prince 800 years before Christ." From him it was 
copied by Holinshed, and a play on the subject appeared upon 
the English stage as early as 1594. The " Lear " of Shakespeare, 
however, could not have been written before 1603, because ''in 
that year, there appeared a book in London, entitled ' Discovery 
of Popish Im posters,' out of which Shakespeare evidently 
borrowed the names of the different devils which Edgar men- 
tions in his simulated madness." Several circumstances point to 
the probability that it was written in ] 605-6, as it was pro- 
duced at the Globe Theatre on December 26 of the latter year. 
Three quarto editions of it appeared soon afterward (1608), 
which is satisfactory evidence that it was highly popular. 

A previous drama of " King Lier and his Three Daughters," 
had appeared about ten years before, but it was a very rude pro- 
duction, and furnished no aid to Shakespeare, beyond what he 
had obtained from Holinshed.^ 

' The story of Lear and his three daughters, as given bj Holinshed, is 
narrated thus : — " Leir, the sonne o£ Baldud, was admitted ruler ouer the 
Britairies, in the yeare of the world 3105, at what time loas reigned in luda. 
This Leir was a prince of right noble demeanor, gouerning his land and sub- 
jects in great wealth. He made the towne of Cserleir, now called Leicester, 
whicli standeth vpon the riuer of Sore. It is written that he had by his wife 
three daughters without other issue, whose names were Gonorilla, Eegan, and 



37^ Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

The names of the thi'ee daug-hters of Lear^ as given in Holin- 
shed, were changed by Shakespeare into Goneril, Regan, and 
Cordelia, and the sub-plot of Gloster, Edmundj and Edgar was 
added by him, in order to intensify the original horror. In this 
Shakespeare succeeds to an extent which out-Herods the bloody 
and unnecessary mutilation of poor Lavinia, whose hands were 
cut off and whose tongue cut out, by the sons of Tamora, merely, 
as it would seem, because our poet had the power of inflicting 
that capricious outrage. 

In this play of '' King Lear/"" Shakespeare takes the same ad- 
vantage of the confidence of his audience, by perpetrating the 
shocking barbarity of plucking out the good old Gloster's eyes, 
as Victor Hugo does in his wanton and irreparable destruc- 
tion of the mouth of his beautiful heroine. Some of the com- 
mentators complain of this outrage by Shakespeare, likewise of the 
hanging of Cordelia at the end of the play, and ascribe both to the 
still clinging barbarism of the Elizabethan period, from which the 

Cordeilla, which daughters he greatly loued, especially Cordeilla the yoongest 
farre aboue the two elder. When this Leir, therefore, was come to great 
yeres and began to waxe vnwieldie through age, he thought to vnderstand the 
affections of his daughters towards him, and preferre hir whome he best 
loued, to the succession ouer the kingdome. Wherevpon he first asked Gono- 
rilla the eldest, how well she loued him : who, calling hir gods to record, pro- 
tested that she loued him more than hir owne life, which by right and 
reason should be most deere vnto hir. With which answer the father being 
well pleased, turned to the second, and demanded of hir how well she loued 
him ; who answered (confirming her saiengs with great othes) that she loued 
him more than toong expresse, and farre aboue all other creatures of the 
world. 

" Then called he is yoongest daughter Cordeilla before him and asked of 
hir what account she made of him, vnto whome she made this answer as fol- 
loweth : ' Knowing the great loue and fatherlie zeale that you haue alwaies 
borne towards me (for the which I maie not answere you otherwise than I 
thinke, and as my conscience leadeth me), I protest vnto you, that I haue 
loued you euer, and will continualli« (while I Hue) loue you as my naturall 
father. And if you would more vnderstand of the loue that I beare you^ 
ascertaine your selfe, that so much as you haue so much you are woorth, and 
so much I loue you, and no more.' The father being nothing content with 
this answer, married his two eldest daughters, the one vnto Henninus, the 
duke of Cornewall, and the other vnto Maglanus, the duke of Albania, 
betwixt whome he willed and ordeined that his land should be diuided after 
his death, and the one half thereof immediatlie should be assigned to them in 
hand ; but for the third daughter Cordeilla he reserued nothing." 



' ' King Lear." 379 

nature of Shakespeare does not appearj says one of them^ to have 
been entirely free. Gervinius thinks^ however^ we should be 
wrong" in calling that age barbarous in which the individual 
could attain to such perfection of culture as we admire in Shake- 
speare. I do not quite see the force of this argument, but the 
German professor remarks with more effect when, in speaking of 
earlier rude periods, he says, — 

" Transported into such times, we delight in the historical 
record of these heroic forms, of this haughty colossal manhood, 
of these striving natures, of these demi-gods and Titans ; we find 
the wanton growth of impulse and passion natural to these races ; 
we are less shocked at the abundance of cruelty, because we feel 
ourselves involuntarily attracted by the greater strength which 
was able in those days to endure heavier burdens and sufferings. 
Nor are we even repelled and misled by the idea that this species 
of manhood was in itself a myth and a fable, too far from the 
human nature familiar to us ever to have had reality ; we know, 
from the well-authenticated history of the Burgundian and 
Merovingian houses, that such times and such men did exist ; 
that family horrors, as we read them in Lear, have abounded for 
centuries even among Christian races, and that the crimes of 
Tantalus in the old tragedy are not necessarily, and from their 
very nature, myths and fables," ^ 

Nevertheless, let me repeat, it is not justifiable for an author to 
minister to a perverted public taste for the horrible, or to perpe- 
trate, through his characters, terrible crimes in our presence, for 
the mere purpose of witnessing, as it were, the effects of their 
revolting force, upon our sentiments. I am disposed to forgive 
almost anything to Shakespeare ; or, 'to speak more reasonably, 
to accept the boundless riches he has conferred upon mankind, 
as a thousand times outweighing the faults he has committed, 
but we can never entirely pardon that heartless exercise of his 
power, shown in cutting out Lavinia's tongue, in the plucking 
out of Gloster^s eyes, and in the abhorrent hanging of the sweet and 
low-voiced Cordelia, that filial saint, who breathed out her life like 
a crushed lily, upon her volcanic father^s bosom ; simply because 
the author can hold us at his mercy, while transfixing us with 
horror. These are mere abuses of God-given strength. There 

2 Gervinius, p. 617, edition of New York, 1875. 



380 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View, 

was no need, in order to reach the susceptibilities of liis audience, 
to hang" that angel of gratitude and goodness, Cordelia. He 
might have allowed her, in accordance with the merciful sweet- 
ness of an old ballad which was built upon the play, to have 
perished upon the battle-field; or, better still (according to Tate 
and Coleman's revised edition of the tragedy), to have soothed 
the previous shocks of nature with a gleam of peaceful and con- 
soling moral moonlight by the nuptials of Edgar and Cordelia. 
Nothing" stood in the way of this denouement, for no stern his- 
tory barred the road against it, while of horrors there had 
already been too many. Indeed, previous to Cordelia's death, we 
had " supp'd full of them." 

The same charge of unnecessary cruelty and unnatural depth 
of wickedness is, I think, to be made against the secondary plot 
of Gloster, Edmund, and Edgar, Edmund, the illegitimate son, 
is made too wicked to be human, and this may be remarked of 
all of Shakespeare's representative villains ; such, for instance, as 
Richard III., lago, Aaron in " Titus Andronicus," and Edmund 
of the play before us. Men in a sound state of health, and in 
good case with the world, as all of the above men were, do not 
perpetrate deeds of cruelty through a mere relish for the deeds 
themselves ; and they do not roll their most horrid acts over like 
sweet morsels for soliloquy, as a cow pleasurably and reflectively 
turns over her cud. There were political reasons for Cornwall to 
dispose of Gloster, and there were strong reasons, also, why 
Edmund should not possess a very high consideration for the father 
who had put the reproach of bastardy upon him, and who 
coarsely and carelessly stings him with that shame. But while 
these reasons might, in the first case, warrant Cornwall in passing 
sentence of death against Gloster, and in the second, induce 
Edmund to conspire toward it for the sake of Gloster's honours 
and estates, these merely material objects do not warrant the 
indiflPerence of Edmund to the horrible manner in which it is 
proposed to torture his father, as a preliminary to his destruc- 
tion : — 

Eegan. Hang him instantly, 

GoNERiL. Pluck out his eyes. 

CoENWAiL. Leave liim to my displeasure. — Edmund, keep our own sister 
company ; the revenges we are bound to take upon your traitorous father are 
not fit for your beholding. Act III. Scene 7. 



'' King Lear" 381 

Human nature is not so wicked as this represents it to be, nor 
so bad as it is pictured by the bloody boastfulness of Aaron. 
Left to its impulses, unprompted by motives of revenge or profit, 
human nature is good, and always inclines to good, and it is a 
great libel upon humanity to represent it otherwise. It is always 
the impulse of a crowd to rescue a man whom accident has sub- 
jected to a sudden danger ; nay, let a dramatist put villainy upon 
the stage, so that its aspect is plain to the spectator, there will 
never be found a person in the entire audience who will not 
execrate it, and sympathize with the innocent object of its male- 
volence. There is always some remnant of mercy left lingering 
in every human heart, and Edmund, with the great influence he 
possessed over the three heads of the government, Goneril, Regan, 
and Cornwall, would not have passed quietly out, in view of the 
terrific intimation given him by Cornwall, without asking that 
the father who had reared him, and who had recently adopted him 
in his heart in place of the slandered Edgar, might, at least, be 
spared his eyes. There is no good purpose served, as I have said 
before, by making any description of humanity too black. 

We find in this play a very curious piece of evidence bearing 
upon the question of Shakespeare^s religious faith. In fixing the 
date of the authorship of " King Lear,^-* I stated that it could 
not have been written before 1603, because, in that year, there 
appeared a book in London by Dr. Harsnet, entitled "^ Discovery 
of Popish Impostors,-'^ out of which Shakespeare evidently bor- 
rowed the names of the different devils which Edgar mentions in 
his simulated madness. This shows that Shakespeare, like a thrifty 
playwright who had a good notion of business, did not scruple to 
avail himself of any current circumstances of great note or popu- 
larity to attract the attention of his audiences ; and by thus 
turning local excitements into the text of his pieces, he made 
them talked about and increased their popularity. We find 
several instances of this among his plays, and the fact that he 
did not hesitate to engraft one of these accidental local excite- 
ments upon such a majestic production of his genius as " King 
Lear,^"* will afford a strong notion how business-like he was. 

The incident I allude to is treated at length by Hunter, and it 
doubtless exercised as great a spell upon the attention of the good 
people of London in 1603 as the Tichborne case did throughout the 
British Isles in 1873 ; or as the Beecher scandal did in the United 



382 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

States in 1875. The case was one of alleged witchcraft, whicli 
took place in Lancashire in 1599, in the family of a gentleman 
of good name and means named Nicholas Starkey, or Starchy, 
residing at Clevvorth, in Leigh. He had a son and a daughter, 
who, in 1595, being then respectively of the ages of nine and ten, 
were seized with fits of a novel and alarming character. The 
family physician could not master them, so Mr. Starchy had 
recourse to one Edmund Hartley, a reputed conjuror, who, by 
the use, as it was alleged, " of certain Popish charms and herbs," 
succeeded in making the fits disappear for about a year and a half. 
The fits having then returned, Mr. Starchy consulted Dr. John 
Dee, a regular physician, but who was as strong a Puritan as 
Hartley was a Catholic. A conflict of judgment was, of course, 
the result, and the worthy Dr. Dee advised Mr. Starchy to call 
in some godly Puritan preachers, with whom they might consult 
as to the advisability of purifying the atmosphere by a public or 
private fast. Preachers on both sides soon became recruits, but 
the fits, despite of these pious influences, having extended them- 
selves to three young girls, wards of Mr. Starchy, also to the ser- 
vants and even to Hartley himself, who had become an inmate 
of the house, the excitement of the neighbourhood and of the 
clergy of the whole country, became intense. A religious war of 
this description could not terminate, in that vigorous age, to any 
public profit without bloodshed ; so, in due course of accusation 
and testification. Hartley, being convicted of witchcraft (though 
it seems he did not have the conscience to confess it), was honour- 
ably hung. This act of justice, with some refreshing barbarities 
attached to it, which the writers only allude to and decline to 
name, took place in 1597. 

There being no newspapers at that time, the enjoyment of the 
circumstances was confined mostly to the clergy and to a very limited 
circle of the town and country people, who may be characterized 
as the neighbours of the Starchys. In 1603, however. Dr. Samuel 
Harsnet, who was successively Bishop of Chichester and Norwich, 
and Archbishop of York, having occasion to attack the Papists, 
issued a book bearing the following title : — 

" A declaration of egregious Popish Impostures to wiiliclraw the 
hearts of His Majesty's subjects from their allegiance, and from the 
truth of the Christian Religion, under the pretence of casting out 
devils ; practised hy Edmmids, alias Weston, and divers Boman 



, ^^ King Lear!' 383 

priests, Ms wiclced associates. WJiereunto are annexed the copies 
of the confessions and examinations of the parties themselves, which 
were pretended to be possessed and dispossessed ; taJcen %ipon oath 
before His Majesty's Commissioners for Causes Ecclesiastical" 

The excitement which preceded the publication of this book, 
by Harsnet, had reached London, however, a year or two before 
(1601), and had been ventilated in the taverns, which, in the 
absence of newspapers, were mediums for the spread of all infor- 
mation of a general or exciting character. The whole affair was, 
doubtless, discussed at ''The Mermaid,'' the celebrated inn to 
which Ben Jonson, Shakespeare, Rowley, Ford, Massinger, Cot- 
ton, Webster, and Beaumont and Hetcher used to resort ; and 
to its discussion there, and to Shakespeare's familiarity with the 
circumstances, may be attributed his ridicule of the Puritans in 
the play of "Twelfth Night;" which latter play is supposed to 
have been produced in 1601-2, when this excitement about the 
Starchy witchcraft was rife. To this also may be attributed our 
poet's artifice of charging the Puritan steward, Malvolio, with 
being possessed by devils, in order to get him locked up. Like- 
wise to this may be assigned his subsequent mockery of the whole 
of Harsnet's statements through the introduction of the absurd 
names of some of his devils, such as Smolken, Flibbertigibbet, 
Moduc, and Mahu, in Edgar's no less Bedlamite ravings in 
" King Lear." Thus we have another singular piece of proof 
that Shakespeare invariably attacks, sneers at, derides, and dis- 
counts Protestants and Puritans, and never fails to treat Catholics 
and the Roman Catholic religion with absolute respect and 
reverence. 

There is another curious circumstance brought out by Hunter 
in his investigation of this Starchy witchcraft, so far as Shake- 
speare's impressions of it have operated upon the scenes and the 
text of " Twelfth Night." The line in Act II. Scene 5, which 
utterly baffled all the commentators in their endeavours to con- 
vert it into sense, — 

The lady of the Strachy married the yeoman of the wardrohe, — 

comes out under this light clearly as a misprint of the word 
Starchy, and the phrase doubtless refers to some incident then 
thoroughly well understood, but which has now, like the inco- 
herent local rant of Nym, become meaningless from the mists of 



384 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

time. There is another expression in " Twelfth Night'''' -which, 
under the light that Hunter throws upon the motive of Shake- 
speare's attack upon the Puritans through the medium of the 
Starchy witchcraft delusion, is well worthy of observation. 

Hunter thus describes what took place in the Starchy family : — 
^'^ At the beginning of 1597 the affair became more serious, for 
not only did the fits return to the two children of Mr. Starchy, 
but three other young girls, wards of Mr. Starchy, and living in 
the family with him, the eldest of whom was fourteen, were seized 
in like manner ; also Margaret Byron, of Salford, a poor kins- 
woman of Mr. Starchy, who had come to Cleworth to make 
merry, was seized in like manner ; also Jane Ashton, a servant of 
the family ; and even Hartley himself did not escape the infection. 
Then follows a very remarkable account of the symptoms, unlike, 
I conceive, to anything with which medical practice is familiar, 
shouting, dancing, singing, laughing, in a most violent and inordinate 
manner, throwing themselves into various postures, talking inco- 
herent and ridiculous nonsense ; all of which was attrihuted to 
Satanic agency. At length it began to be suspected that Hartley 
had bewitched them ; the magistracy interfered, information 
against Hartley for the use of magical arts was laid before a 
neighbouring justice of the peace. He, in fact, who had been 
called in to relieve them was now suspected of being himself the 
person by whose means it was that they had suffered so much. 
The young girls, when brought before the magistrate, were 
speechless, and afterwards said that Hartley would not let them 
speak against him. This was considered sufficient evidence against 
Hartley, and, under the pressure of the Protestant clergy, he was, 
as we have seen, convicted and hung." A few days after his 
execution, some of the girls who had been " possessed" appeared 
before a convocation of ministers, when, to resume the language 
of Hunter, " several of them began to blaspheme, and, when the 
Bible was introduced, they shouted out in a scoffing manner, 
* Bible-bable, Bible-bable,' continuing this cry for some time. 
This was accompanied by strange and supernatural whooping, so 
loud that the house and the ground shook again. ''''^ 

This explains, and makes clear, the singular expression of the 

^ Hunter's " Life, Studies, and Writings of Shakespeare," vol. i. pp. 384 — 
388. London, J. B. Nichols and Son. 



" King Lear^ 385 

Clown, in ^'Twelfth Night/-' to Malvolio^ when the latter is 
in durance, under the suspicion of being possessed with evil 
spirits : — 

Clown. Advise you what you say; the minister is here. Malvolio, 
Malvolio, thy wits the heavens restore ! Endeavour thyself to sleep, and 
leave thy vain hibble-hahble. 

Shakespeare was here evidently treating his audience with refe- 
rence to the current excitement on the subject of the Strachy 
witchcraft, which then possessed the public mind ; and the whole 
of which, under the lights of three subsequent centuries of expe- 
rience, it is not difficult to understand. We can readily perceive 
that under the tremendous revolution of sentiment which had 
changed the religious belief of a whole nation, the youthful minds 
of the two Starchy children (probably under the lead of the more 
susceptible imagination of the girl) had been converted into a 
sorb of religious ecstasy, which, according to the foregoing de- 
scription of Hunter, would seem to have led them into such crazy 
transports or religious hysteria as animate the modern ranting 
Methodists, or as inspire the howling dervishes of India, at the 
present day. I have myself seen specimens of the latter reli- 
gious frenzy in the East, while of the ranters every one has 
observed enough of instances both in England and America. 

The Starchy girl was probably the first specimen of the Puri- 
tan cataleptic Pythoness ever known to English history ; and the 
other females of the Starchy family, doubtless, fell into her hys- 
teric raptures from magnetic sympathy. The bewildered father, 
not knowing what to make of these bowlings, and having failed 
to control the vixenish exhibition, called in, as a dernier resort, 
a mild, quiet, obscure Catholic clergyman, of humble degree, who 
probably consented to be regarded as a conjuror, rather than be 
prosecuted as a nonconformist. He doubtless controlled the 
children by soothing advice and the decorous lessons of his faith, 
and thus secured a truce to the girl's devilment for eighteen 
months. Then, probably, through some unmanageable crisis of 
her, nature, the wilfulness broke forth again, and the result of the 
relapse was, that the whole party were taken before a magistrate. 
Sectarian jealousy was thus aroused, and the poor, hard-working, 
well-intentioned priest was hanged. The other women, who were 
drawn into these cataleptic spasms, were purely the victims of 



386 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View, 

magnetic sympathy, and all of them, doubtless^ could have been 
cured in a moment by a bucket of cold water ; or, like the frenzied 
performers of our modern camp meetings, been restored to their 
tranquillity by the quiet walking away of the audiences. The 
Starchy girl was the first ranter we have any knowledge of; and 
it is a pity that poor, inoffensive Mr. Hartley should have been 
hung for her disease. The report that he had himself been in- 
fected by it is clearly a sectarian fabrication. 

So powerfully was the public mind agitated with the Starchy 
witchcraft that Harsnet published a second edition of his book in 
1605, while Shakespeare was at work upon "King Lear;^' and, 
in this latter edition, the Doctor added several new illustrations. 
" In one of these cases," says Hunter, " six persons were supposed 
to be possessed," one of whom Harsnet mentions as Mr. Edmund 
Peckham. " There were not fewer than twelve priests engaged, 
besides Edmunds the Jesuit;" " and not the least curious part of 
the transaction," continues Hunter, " is that the possessed had 
given names to the devils who infested them." The list is very 
remarkable, as compared with the names used in " King Lear" 
by Edgar in his personation of Poor Tom : 8molhen, Maho, Modu, 
Frateretto, Flihertigihbet, Hoherdidance, Hoberdicut, being adopted 
by Shakespeare from Harsnet's vocabulary of the fiends. By 
putting these names into the mouth of Edgar, when he was acting 
in the assumed character of a Bedlamite, " it was {he intention 
of Shakespeare," adds Hunter, " to cast ridiciile upon the entire 
affair of the Starchy family, and to teach the people who fre- 
quented his theatre, to view the whole with contempt. The means 
were nearly the same as those which he had employed in ' Twelfth 
Night' to produce a similar result." Himter further remarks, 
" that it is worthy of attention that the name of Edmund, which 
originates in a diflFerent language and at a different period of time 
from those of Lear, Regan, Goneril, and Cordelia, is given by 
Shakespeare to one of his leading characters, apparently from 
Harsnet's publication. The following similitude, however, is still 
more striking. Harsnet says, in his relation about one of the 
" possessed" parties, " Master Maynie had a spice of the Hysterica 
Passio, as seems from his youth : he himself terms it Tke Mother, 
as you may see in his confession."^ 

And thus, Shakespeare, in Act II. Scene 4 : — 
4 " Hunter," vol. xi. p. 270. 



'' King Lear r 387 

Leak. 0, how ttis mother swells up toward my heart ! 
Htfsterica Passio ! down thou climbing sorrow, 
Thy element's below. 

Shakespeare seems to have been in a strong vein of plagiarism, 
or rather of self-plagiarism, throughout this play. ' We find 
him repeating himself in several paragraphs from King John, 
Othello, Julius Cgesar, and Macbeth. The first instance of 
this occurs in Act I. Scene 2, where Edmund, breathing the 
very soul of Faulconbridge, makes a remarkable duplication ot 
that character, by a fresh reference to the very period of time, 
which Susanna, our poet's eldest daughter, occupied for her 
irregular debut in the Shakespeare family, subsequent to the 
parentis nuptial knot. Shakespeare was married to Ann Hatha- 
way in December, 1582, and Susanna came May 23, 1583, so, 
his first-born appeared just about fourteen weeks before its time. 
Robert Faulconbridge says, in "King John,'' when arguing 
against his bastard brother's right to his father's estate, — 

And I have heard my father speak himself 
"When this same lusty gentleman was got. 
Upon his death-bed he by will bequeath'd 
His land to me ; and took it on his oath 
That this, my mothers son, was none of his : 
And if he were, he came into the world 
Mill fourteen weeks lefore the course of time. 

Act I. Scene 1. 

Now, in " Lear," Edmund, the bastard son of Gloster, puts 
Ids case as follows : — 

Enter Emitjnd, with a letter. 
Edm. Thou, nature, art my goddess ; to thy law 
My services are bound : Wherefore should I 
Stand in the plague of custom ; and permit 
The curiosity of nations to deprive me, 
For that lam some twelve or fourteen moonshines 
Lag of a brother 1 Why bastard ? wherefore base ? 
When my dimensions are as well compact, 
My mind as generous, and my shape as true. 
As honest madam's issue ? Why brand they us 
With base ? with baseness ? bastardy .» base, base ? 
Who, in the lusty stealth of nature, take 
More composition and fierce quality, 
Than doth, within a dull, stale, tired bed. 



388 Shakespeare, fj^om an American Point of View. 

Go to tlie creating a wliole tribe of fops, 

Got 'tweeu asleep and awake P — Well then, 

Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land : 

Our father's love is to the bastard Edmund, 

As to the legitimate : Fine word, — legitimate ! 

Well, my legitimate, if this letter speed, 

And my invention thrive, Edmund the base 

Shall top the legitimate. Act I. Scene 2. 

Another plagiarism upon the Faulconbridg-e of " King* John " 
appears in Act II. Scene 2, where Kent says to Cornwall, — 

Yes, sir ; but anger hath a privilege. 

It will be seen that this is a conspicuous imitation of Pem- 
broke's reply to the Bastard, as they stand quarreling over the 
dead body of Arthur : — 

Pem. Sir, sir, impatience hath his privilege. 

Bast. 'Tis true ; to hurt his master, no man else. 

We next find Edmund repeating the trick which Cassius played 
on Brutus, by showing to Gloster a letter he had forged to the 
disparagement of Edgar, but . which he represents had been 
" thrown in at the casement " of his chamber, as Cassius had 
contrived to have done to Brutus. In the same scene Edmund 
devises an interview between himself and Edgar, for the in- 
credulous Gloster to overhear, in the course of which, by the 
artful discussion of a diflPerent topic, we have repeated to us the 
singular scene between lago, Cassio, Bianca, and Othello. 

Another instance occurs in Act III. Scene 7, where Gloster, 
in imitation of an expression by Macbeth, says, — 

I am tied to the stake, and I must stand the course. 

The expression of Macbeth is, — 

They have tied me to a stake : I cannot fly, . 
But, bear-like, I must fight the course. 

Let me here mention, as it is an isolated case, in support of 
my views as to the probable high rank of Timon's steward, that 
in this play of " Lear," we find a steward writing letters under 
GoneriFs dictation (but using his own form of expression) ; thus 
showing that, in acting in this way for one of the three heads of 
the then British Government, he, though a steward, was exer- 
cising the function of a privy counsellor. 



" '^ King Lear.'' 389 

The course of the play now brings me to the actual plucking 
out of .Gloster's eyes, and as it presents an instance of true 
worthiness in a mere serving-man, it thus, to some extent, seems 
to run against the theory that Shakespeare never makes a hero 
of an humble person, or graces him with voluntary virtue. I 
will give the matter at sufficient length, to enable the situation 
to be well understood. 

The scene is in the castle of Gloster, who is entertaining 
E/Cgan and her husband the Duke of Cornwall, as his guests. 
During their stay, Edmund has taken the opportunity thus 
afforded to him, to betray to the Duke the fact that his father 
had received a letter from the invading forces, and had furnished 
to King Lear the means to escape to Dover, and put himself 
under their protection. Upon this, the following terrific scene 
ensues : — 

Act III. Scene 7. — A 'Room in Gloster's Castle. 
Enter the Duee of Coenwall, Eegan, Goneeil, Edmund, and Servants. 
CoEN. Post speedily to my lord your hustand ; show him this letter — the 
army of France is landed. — Seek out the villain Gloster. 
Eeg. Hang him instantly. [^Exeunt some of the Servants. 

GoN. Pluck out his eyes. 

CoEN. Leave him to my displeasure. — Edmund, keep you our sister com- 
pany ; the revenges we are bound to take upon your traitorous father, are 

not fit for your beholding 

Enter Steward. 
How now ? Where's the king ? 
Stew. My lord of Gloster hath convey 'd him hence : 
Some five or six and thirty of his knights. 
Hot questrists after him, met him at gate ; 
Who, with some other of the lord's dependants. 
Are gone with him towards Dover ; where they boast 
To have well-arm'd friends. 
CoEN. Get horses for your mistress. 

GoN. Farewell, sweet lord, and sister. 

\_Exeunt Goneeil and Edmund. 
CoEN. Edmund, farewell. — {To the Servants) Go, seek the traitor 
Gloster, 
Pinion him like a thief, bring him before us : 

[Exeunt other Servants. 
Though well we may not pass upon his life 
Without the form of justice ; yet our power 
Shall do a courtesy to our wrath, which men 
May blame, but not control. Who's there ? The traitor ? 
JRe-enter Servants, with Glostee. 
26 



390 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View, 

Reg. Ingratef ul fox ! 'tis he. . 

CoBN. Bind fast his corky arms. ^ 

Glo. What means your graces P — Good my friends, consider 

You are my guests : do me no foul play, friends. 
CoEN. Bind him, I say. {Servants hind him. 

Eeg. Hard, hard : — O filthy traitor ! 
Glo. Unmerciful lady as you are, I am none. 
CoEN. To this chair bind him : — Villain, thou shalt find — 

[Regan pluchs Ms heard, 
Gio. By the kind gods, 'tis most ignobly done. 

To pluck me by the beard. 
Reg. So white, and such a traitor ! 
Glo. Naughty lady. 

These hairs, which thou dost ravish from my chin, 

Will quicken, and accuse thee : I am your host ; 

With robbers' hands, my hospitable favours 

You should not rufile thus. What will you do ? 
CoEN. Come, sir, what letters had you late from France P 
Reg. Be simple-answer'd, for we know the truth. 
CoEN. And what confederacy have you with the traitors 

Late footed in the kingdom ? 
Reg. To whose hands have you sent the lunatic king ? Speak. 
Glo. I have a letter guessingly set down. 

Which came from one that's of a neutral heart, 

And not from one opposed. 
CoEN. Cunning. 

Reg. And false. 

CoEN. Where hast thou sent the king ? 
Glo. To Dover. 

Reg. Wherefore 

To Dover ? Wast thou not charged at thy peril— 
CoEN. Wherefore to Dover ? Let him first answer that. 
Glo. I am tied to the stake, and I must stand the course. 
Reg. Wherefore to Dover ? 
Glo. Because I would not see thy cruel nails ■ 

Pluck out his poor old eyes ; nor thy fierce sister 

In Ids anointed flesh stick bearish fangs. 

The sea, with such a storm as his bare head 

In hell-black night endured, would have buoy'd up 

And quench'd the stelled fires : yet, poor old heart. 

He help the heavens to reign. 

If wolves had at thy gate howl'd that stern time. 

Thou should'st have said, Good porter, turn the key ; 

All cruels else subscribed : — But I shall see 

The winged vengeance overtake such children. 
CoEN. See it shalt thou never : — Fellows, hold the chair : — 

Upon these eyes of thine I'll set my foot. 



" King Lear." 391 

[Glostee is held down in his chair, while Coenwall 
flucJcs out one of his eyes, and sets his foot on it. 
Glo. He that will think to live till he be old, 

Give me some help : — cruel ! O ye gods ! 
Reg. One side will mock another ; the other too. 
CoEN. If you see vengeance, — 
Seev. Hold your hand, my lord ; 

I have served you ever since I was a child ; 

JBut better service have I never done yov, 

Than now to hid you hold. 
Reg. How now, you dog ? 

Seev. If you did wear a heard upon your chin, 

I'd shaJce it on this quarrel : What do you mean ? 
CoEN. My villain ! \JDraws, and runs at him. 

Seet. Nay, then come on, and take the chance of anger. 

\_Draws. They fight. Coenwall is wounded. 
Eeg. Give me thy sword. — \_To another Servant. 

A peasant stand up thus ! 

[^Snatches a sword, comes behind, and stabs him. 
Seet. O, I am slain ! — My lord, you have one eye left 

To see some mischief on him : — ! , [Dies. 

CoEN. Lest it see more, prevent it : Out, vile jeUy ! 

Where is thy lustre now ? 

l^Tears out Glostee's other eye, and throws it on the ground. 
Glo. All dark and comfortless. — Where's my Son, Edmund ? 

Edmund, enkindle all the spai-ks of nature. 

To quit this horrid act. 
Reg. Out, treacherous villain ! 

Thou call'st on him that hates thee : it was he 

That made the overture of thy treasons to us ; 

Wlio is too good to pity thee. 
Glo. O my follies ! 

Then Edgar was abused. — 

Kind gods, forgive me that, and prosper him ! 
Reg. Go, thrust him out at gates, and let him smell 

His way to Dover. — How'st, my lord ? How look you ? 
CoEN. I have received a hurt : — Follow me, lady. 

Turn out that eyeless villain ; — throw this slave 

Upon the dunghill. — Regan, I bleed apace : 

Untimely comes this hurt : Give me your arm. 

[_JSxit Coenwall, led by Regan. Servants unbind 
Glostee, and lead him out. 

1 Seev. I'll never care what wickedness I do. 

If this man come to good. 

2 Seev. If she live long, 

And, in the end, meet the old course of death, 
Women will all turn monsters. 



392 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

1 Seev. Let's follow the old earl, and get tlie Bedlam 

To lead him where he would ; his roguish madness 
Allows itself to anything. 

2 Seev. Qo thou; Til fetch some flax, and whites of eggs. 

To apply to his hleeding face. Noio, Heaven help him ! 

{^Exeunt severally. 

Here is courage and worthy purpose^ for the first time, 
accorded bj our poet to a common man. I give it fully and for 
all that it is worth ; but it must be observed that the incident is 
one of meagre bounds and momentary passion, and it is not amiss 
to notice, that the servant who rebels against his master in the 
interest of humanity, meets the immediate reward of death. It 
may also be observed that the humanity and kindness of the two 
other servants was the irrepressible instinct of retainers, who had 
been brought up and nurtured in the family of the injured 
Gloster. Moreover, their rude pity was necessary as a foil and 
setting to the wolfish cruelty of the main actors. So far as 
Shakespeare is concerned, therefore, it was the dramatic artist, 
not the man, who spoke through the protesting serfs. 

There is but little left in this play which, at present, requires 
our attention ; but, as Catholic symptoms of the religious com- 
plexion of our poet^s mind are next in order, I wish to direct 
attention to the following expressions : — ^in Act III. Scene 2, the 
Fool says to Lear, while the latter is invoking the full fury of 
the tempest on the heath, — 

O nuncle, court Jioly-water in a dry house is better than this rain-water 
out o' door. 

Again, the Fool says, during the same storm, — 

No heretics burn'd but wench's suitors. 
A most substantial instance occurs, however, bearing upon 
this portion of our theme, in the lines describing how Cordelia 
received the news of the sufierings of the poor old king, her 
father : — 

There she shook 
The holy loater from her heavenly eyes 
And clamour moisten'd, then away she started 
To deal with grief alone. 

In connexion vdth this scene, let me not pass the expression 
of the gentleman, who, looking with agony and commiseration 
upon the sufferings of Lear, exclaims, — 



♦ " King Lear," ^ 393 

A eight most pitiful in the meanest wretch ; 
Past spealcing of in a king ! 

Here we recognize^ once morej the worshipful leaning of our 
poet for a king. 



SHAKESPEAEE^S LEGAL ACQUIUEMENTS. 

I have but one further task of observation left to my scope of 
duty, in connexion with this play^ and that is to present the 
evidence which Lord Chief Justice Campbell finds to support the 
idea that our poet had either been a practising lawyer like Bacon 
or an attorney's clerk. 

" In Act I, Scene 4^ the Fool/' says his lordship, " makes a 
lengthy rhyming speech, containing a great many trite but useful 
moral maxims, such as, — 

Have more than thou showest, 
Speak less than thou knowest, &c. 

which the testy old king found rather flat and tiresome. 

Leae. This is nothing, fool. 

Fool. Then, 'tis like the hreatJi of an unfeed lawyer: you gave me 
nothing for it. 

" This seems to show that Shakespeare had frequently been pre- 
sent at trials in courts of justice, and now speaks from his own 
recollection. There is no trace of such a proverbial saying as 
' like the breath of an unfeed lawyer,' while all the world knows 
the proverb, ' Whosoever is his own counsel has a fool for his 
client ' 

" I confess that there is some foundation for the saying, that ' a 
lawyer's opinion which costs nothing is worth nothing;' but 
this can only apply to opinions given off-hand, in the course of 
common conversation, — where there is no time for.deliberation, 
where there is a desire to say what wiU be agreeable, and where 
no responsibility is incurred. 

" In Act II. Scene 1, there is a remarkable example of Shake- 
spear'e's use of technical legal phraseology. Edmund, the wicked 
illegitimate son of the Earl of Gloster, having succeeded in 
deluding his father into the belief that Edgar, the legitimate son, 
had attempted to commit parricide, and had been prevented from 



394 Shakespeare, fro7n an American Point of View, 

aecomplisliing' the crime by Edmund^s tender solicitude for the 
EarFs safety^ the Earl is thus made to express a determination 
that he would disinherit Edg-ar (who was supposed to have fled 
from justice)^ and that he would leave all his possessions to 
Edmund : — 

Glo. Strong and fasten'd villain ! 

All ports I'll bar ; the villain shall not 'scape. 

J£> ^ ^ 

Besides, his picture 
I will send far and near, that all the kingdom 
May have due note of him ; * and of my land. 
Loyal and natural boy, I'll work the means 
To make thee capable. 

" In forensic discussions respecting legitimacy, the question is 
put, whether the individual whose status is to be determined is 
' capable/ i. e., capable of inheriting* ; but it is only a lawyer 
who would express the idea of legitimizing a natural son by 
simply saying, — 

I'll work the means to make him capable. 

" Again, in Act III. Scene 5, we find Edmund trying to incense 
the Duke of Cornwall against his father for having taken part 
with Lear when so cruelly treated by Goneril and Regan. The 
two daughters had become the reigning sovereigns, to whom 
Edmund -professed to owe allegiance. Cornwall, having created 
Edmund Earl of Gloster, says to him, — 

Seek out where thy father is, that he may be ready for our apprehension. 

On which Edmund observes aside, — 

If I find him comforting the king, it will stuff his suspicion more fully. 

" Upon this Dr. Johnson has the following note : — ' He uses 
the word [comforting] in the juridical sense, for supporting, 
helping.^ 

" The indictment against an accessory after the fact, for treason, 
charges that the accessory ' comforted ' the principal traitor 
after knowledge of the treason. 

" In Act III. Scene 6, the imaginary trial of the two unnatural 

* One would suppose that photography, by which this mode of catching 
criminals is now practised, had been invented in the reign of " King Lear." 



^'' King Lear." 395 

daughters is conducted in a manner showing a perfect familiarity 
with criminal procedure. 

" Lear places the two Judges on the bench, viz.. Mad Tom and 
the Fool. He properly addresses the former as ' the robed man 
of justice/ but, although both were 'of the commission/ I do 
not quite understand why the latter is called his ' yokefellow of 
equity/ unless this might be supposed to be a special commis- 
sion, like that which sat on Mary, Queen of Scots, including 
Lord Chancellor Audley. 

" Lear causes Goneril to be arraigned first, and then proceeds as 
a witness to give evidence against her, to prove an overt act of 
high treason : — 

I tere take my oath before this honourable assembly, she kicked the poor 
king, her father. 

" But the trial could not be carried on with perfect regularity 
on account of Lear's madness, and, without waiting for a verdict, 
he himself sentences Regan to be anatomized. 

Then, let them anatomize Eegan ; see what breeds about her heart.'' 

All I have to remark in regard to the foregoing is, that, not- 
withstanding the "great diligence which these extracts exhibit on 
the part of Lord Campbell in examining the text, his lordship 
has singularly enough overlooked, or, perhaps, I should rather 
say, intentionally left out, two of the most striking evidences of 
Shakespeare^s knowledge of the administration of the law, as it 
then seemed to be practised in Great Britain, which his works 
afford. Both of these instances occur in the famous scene in Act 
IV. Scene 6, where the mad old king, fantastically dressed in 
flowers, holds a sort of court upon the heath : — 

Leae {to Glosfer). Look with thine ears. See how yon' justice rails 
upon yon' simple thief. Hark, in thine ear. Change places ; and, handy- 
dandy, which is the justice, which is the thief? 



Again : — 



Through tatter 'd clothes small vices do appear ; 
JRobes andfwrr'd gowns hide all. Plate sin with gold 
And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks ; 
Arm it in rags, a pigmy's straw will pierce it. 
None does offend, none, I say none ; I'll able 'em. 

{^Offers money' 



396 Shakespeare^ from an American Point of View. 

Take tTiat of me, my friend, who have the fower 
To seal the accuser s lips. 

Surely Lord. Campbell^ who accepted his first legal instance in 
this play from the mouth of a fool^ as to an " un-feed lawyer/^ 
mig-ht have given some attention to the above powerful lines, 
from the lips of a madman. 

The illustration, however, does not reflect much credit upon 
the administration of justice, of which Lord Campbell had been 
such " a shining pillar,''' while it would be perfectly destructive 
to Lord Bacon, who had been degraded from the bench and sent 
to prison for taking bribes. Perhaps the former idea is the 
reason of his lordship's silence. Of one thing we may be certain. 
Bacon would never have written these latter allusions to judicial 
corruption; or, if he had done so in 1605, when "Lear'' was 
composed, he would have expunged them in 1G33, when the 
Shakespearian folio was revised and published. 



« Hamlet:' 



397 



CHAPTER XXXVI. 



HAMLET. 



The basis of the story of " Hamlet " is found in tlie Latin of 
the Danish historian_, Saxo Grammaticus^ who died about 1204, 
from whence it found its way, with some alterations, into Belle- 
forest's collection of novels, which was begun in 1564, the year 
of our poet's birth. From this receptacle Shakespeare doubtless 
took the narrative^ and gave it the fashion it at present wears. 

" ' Hamlet ' '' was most probably written," says Kenny, " to- 
wards the end of 1601, or the commencement of 1603, and first 
acted in the spring or early summer of the latter year." The 
first edition of the play was issued in the year 1603, under the 
following title : — ' 

" The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarh, ly 
William Shakespeare, as it hath been divers times acted iy His 
Highness' Servants in the City of Londo?i, also, in the two Univer- 
sities of Cambridge and Oxford, and elsewhere. At London, printed 
for N. L, and John Trundell, 1603." 

" There is an entry of this play for publication," says Hunter, 
" on the books of the Stationers' Company, under date of July 
26th, 1602." From the title-page, as above, it seems to have 
been several times acted, and the testimony of Harvey, cited by 
Steevens, seems to be decisive of the existence of a play called 
"Hamlet," in 1598, and to the fact of that play having been 
written by the same hand which produced " Venus and Adonis," 
and the " Rape of Lucrece." 

" During the first ten years of Shakespeare's dramatic career," 
says Dowden, " he wrote quickly, producing, if we suppose he 
commenced authorship at the age of twenty-six (1590), some 
eight or nine comedies, and the whole of the great series of 
English historical dramas, which, when Henry V. was written, 
Shakespeare probably looked upon as complete. In this decade 
only a single tragedy appears, ' Romeo and Juliet.' This play 



398 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

is believed to have occupied our poet^s attention for several 
years, but dissatisfied, probably, with the first form which it as- 
sumed, he worked upon it again, rewriting and enlarging it. 
But it is not unlikely that, even then, he considered his powers 
to be insufficiently matured for the great dealing, as an artist, 
with the human life and passion which tragedy demands. Then, 
after an interval of about five years, a second tragedy, ' Hamlet,'' 
was produced. Over ' Hamlet,^ as over ' Eomeo and Juliet,^ 
it is supposed that Shakespeare laboured long and carefully. 
Thus it came about that Shakespeare, at nearly forty years of 
age, was the author of but two tragedies." ^ 

"The exact mode of the preparation of this tragedy," says 
Hunter, " will probably never be fully ascertained. Shakespeare 
seems to have worked upon it in a manner difierent from his 
usual practice. We discover not only that large additions were 
made to the play after it had been presented at the theatres, but 
that very material changes were made in the distribution of the 
scenes and the order of events. This seems to show that there 
was no period when the poet sat down to his work, having a 
settled project in his mind, and meaning to work out the design 
continuously from the opening to the catastrophe ; and this may 
be, after all, the true reason of the difficulty which has always 
been felt, of determining what the character really is, in which 
the poet meant to invest the hero of the piece. It may account 
also for the introduction of the scenes which appear to have been 
written for the sake of themselves alone j beautiful in themselves, 
but neither necessary for the maintenance of a general harmony 
in the whole, nor for the carrying on the business of the story. 
To this want of continuity in the composition of the piece, is also 
to be attributed the great falling off in the latter portions, and 
the lame and impotent manner in which what ought to be the 
grand catastrophe, is brought about. . . . Had the poet 
proceeded continuously, according to what (from this opening) 
may be concluded to have been his first design, and shown us the 
young prince made acquainted with his father^s death by the 
supernatural visitation, and, at the same time, engaged to avenge 
it on his uncle, — this, with such an underplot as is here wrought 
in of his attachment to Ophelia, the efiect of his assumed mad- 

1 Dowden's " Shakespeare's Mind and Art," pp. 95—98. King and Co., 
London, 1875. 



« ^^ Hamlet y 399 

ness upon her^ the impediments arising- out of this attachment, 
to the execution of the main purpose, would have formed the 
plot of as magnificent a tragedy as hath ever been conceived 
from the days when first the more awful passions were repre- 
sented on the stage/^ ^ 

The question whether Hamlet^s madness was real or assumed, 
has elicited a greater amount of dispute among the commentators 
than any other problem in our poet^s works, and upon this point 
the transcendental German Shakspearians have hung more illu- 
sory theories than upon all other disputed points of our poet^'s 
philosophy combined. Indeed, could the spirit of the Sweet 
Swan of Avon revisit the glimpses of our moon, and be asked 
to review and pass its judgment upon the multitudinous mean- 
ings of which the critics have accused his obscurer paragraphs, it 
would probably be glad to vanish back and submit with com- 
parative satisfaction to a few weeks of fresh fires in supple- 
mentary purgation, rather than follow the toilsome task to its 
perplexing. end. 

Kenny in treating of the madness question, shrewdly says, 
" that the dramatist has sometimes run closely and even inex- 
tricably together the feigned madness and the real mental per- 
turhation of Hamlet. We should have had no difficulty," he 
continues, " in accepting this representation of the character, if 
it were only consistently maintained. It would even, under the 
circumstances, have been perfectly natural ; but we find that, in 
his real mood, Hamlet retains throughout the drama, as through- 
out the story, the perfect possession of his faculties; his only 
confidant, Horatio, must feel quite assured upon that point, and 
we are compelled, in spite of a few equivocal passages, entirely 
to share his conviction.^' This view of Kenny^s is, in my 
opinion, the correct one, for had Shakespeare intended to repre- 
sent Hamlet as being actually mad, the fact could not have been 
concealed from Horatio, who possessed his entire confidence, and 
on whom he depended till the last. There are several other 
reasons supporting this conclusion, but they have been so often 
given it is not necessary I should repeat them. 

The truth is, as Dowden states it, that " Shakespeare created 
Hamlet a mystery, and, therefore, it is for ever suggestive and 

« " Hunter," vol. ii. p. 206. 



400 Shakespeare^ from an American Point of View. 

never wholly explicable." I should rather put it that Shake- 
speare conceived his idea of the character of Hamlet in a mystified 
and confused sort of mood; that he worked upon it for a long- 
while without re-shaping" his initial errors, and that, while 
enriching it with casual beauties, he kept on loading it with new 
errors and fresh contradictions. Every writer accustomed to 
much composition, knows that if one does not start with a clear 
and definite conception, it is almost impossible to become clear 
afterward, even by the most laborious efforts of subsequent 
pruning or development, "Now, it is a remarkable circum- 
stance,^-' says Dowden, " that, while the length of the play, in 
the second quarto, considerably exceeds its length in the earlier 
form of 1603, and thus materials for the interpretation of Shake- 
speare's purpose in the play are offered in greater abundance, the 
obscurity does not diminish, but, on the contrary, deepens, and, 
if some questions appear to be solved, other questions in greater 
number spring into existence." It is not likely, therefore, that 
this mystery, contradiction, and uncertainty in Hamlet's cha- 
racter could have proceeded from the mind of Sir Francis Bacon, 
who was always clear, congruous, explicit and unmistakeable in 
his meaning, as the prince of logicians and demonstrators was 
sure to be. 

But it is this dreamy confusion, this romantic uncertainty of 
mood, which gives to the German critics their vast opportunities 
for speculation and display. Some of them have told us that 
they cannot account for the wonderful charm of this play above 
all the others of our author, but it seems to me that the secret of 
the great interest which the kind-hearted general public take in 
the character of Hamlet, lies in the wrongs which he suffered, 
and the filial gentleness and religious subordination he exhibits 
in receiving the command and exhortations of his father's ghost. 
He is the disinherited prince of the fairy tale, whom we love 
because he has been betrayed, and in whom our interest increases 
as misfortune falls upon him. There is no witchcraft and no 
wonder in all this, as human nature when unbiassed by self- 
interest is inherently and invariably good. The preference which 
the German critics show for Hamlet is probably due to the 
mystery which our poet has allowed to dwell with the character, 
after all his endeavours to lift himself out of the contradictions 
of his first sketch. But, as the Germans claim, and, as Mezieres 



'' HamleC 401 

and other Frencli critics admit, Hamlet represents tlie German 
national mind, and Elze declares that Freiligrath, one of the 
German commentators, was right in exclaiming-, " Germany is 
Hamlet!^'' 

The German commentators, as a rule, do not favour, or, I 
might rather say, will not tolerate the idea of Shakespeare 
being a Roman Catholic, and even honest and straightforward 
Gervinius is willing to contribute a gentle little artifice to mis- 
lead us on this point. In analyzing the character of the melan- 
choly prince, he remarks, " He is essentially a man of letters j 
he carries memorandum books with him ; allusions to his reading 
are ready to him ; in advanced years he was still at the university, 
and longs to return there; not like Laertes, to Paris, hut at Wit- 
tenberg, a name honoured hij the Protestant hearts of England J" ^ 

The obvious object of this latter expression is to suggest that 
Wittenberg, during Hamlet's period, was a Protestant seat of 
learning, and that he consequently was a Protestant. But this 
pleasant little artifice cannot prevail, as the Danish historian, 
who first wrote the story of Hamlet, died in 1204. The theory 
of the inuendo also meets with an equally potent difficulty in the 
fact that, if the Prince had been educated in a Protestant academy, 
its religious formula vanished with a singular rapidity, while his 
mind, at the same time, became imbued with the Catholic ritual 
with a suddenness akin to magic. 

The whole of the first act is filled with Roman Catholic 
doctrine, imagery, and reference. The theory of purgatory and 
exorcism are conspicuously declared upon the entrance into 
the first scene of the unsettled Ghost, by the exclamation of 
Marcellus : — 

Thou art a scholar, speak to it, Horatio ! 

But the Ghost will not be spoken to, and vanishes with all the 
dignity of sepulchral reserve. It soon re-enters, apparently in 
search of Hamlet, but it again refuses to reply to the question of 
Horatio, and disappears at the crowing of the cock. Thereupon 
Horatio and Marcellus give the following exposition of the 
Catholic theory of purgatory : — 

" Elze," page 246. London, McMillan and Co., 1874 
* Gervinius on " Shakespeare," p. 567. Scribner and Co., New York. 



402 Shakespeare, froin an American Point of View. 

Mae. 'Tis gone ! 

We do it wrong, being so majestical, 

To offer it the show of violence ; 

For it is, as the air, invulnerable, 

And our vain blows malicious mockery. 
Bee. It was about to speak, when the cock crew. 
Hoe. And then it started like a guilty thing 

TJpon a fearful summons. I have heard 

The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn, 

Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat 

Awake the god of day ; and, at his warning, 

Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air. 

The extravagant and erring spirit hies 

To his confine: and of the truth herein 

This present object made probation. 
Mae. It faded on the crowing of the cock. 

Some say, that ever 'gainst that season comes 

Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated, 

The bird of daiuning singeth all night long : 

And then, they say, no spirit can walk abroad ; 

The nights are wholesome ; then no planets strihe, 

No fairy tahes, nor witch hath power to charm. 

So hallow' d and so gracious is the time. 
Hoe. So have I heard, and do in part believe it. 

But, look, the morn, in russet mantle clad, 

Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastern hill : 

Break we our watch up ; and, by my advice, 

Let us impart what we have seen to-night 

Unto young Hamlet : for, upon my life. 

This spirit, dumb to us, will speak to him. 

The above scene is intricately Catholic, from first to last. 
In the second scene of the same Act, Hamlet says, — 

O, that this too, too solid flesh would melt. 
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew ! 
Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd 
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter ! 

Catholics, as we have said before, do not extend the funeral 
rites of the church to suicides, nor permit them to be buried in 
consecrated ground. Protestants, on the other hand, do not 
trouble themselves much about the matter. At the end of this 
soliloquy Hamlet expresses another Catholic dogma, in the 
imputation of incest for marriage with a deceased brother's 
wife : — 



♦ " Hamlet!' 403 

Witliin a month ; 
Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears 
Had left the flushing of her galled eyes, 
She married. most wicked speed to pog 
With such dexterity to incestuous sheets ; 
It is not, nor it cannot come to, good. 

Again^ we find this thoroughly Catholic doctrine enunciated 
repeatedly in the scenes between Hamlet and the Ghost. 

Enter Ghost. 

Hoe. Look my lord, it comes ! 

Ham. Angels and ministers of grace defend us !^ 
Be thou a spirit of health or gohlin damn'd, 
JBring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell, 
Be thy intents wicked or charitable, 
Tliou com'st in such a questionable shape, 
That I will speaJc to thee ; I'll call thee Hamlet, 
King, father, royal Dane : 0, answer me : 
Let me not burst in ignorance ! but tell. 
Why thy canonized bones, hearsed in death, 
Save burst their cerements ? why the sepulchre 
Wherein we saw thee quietly in-urn'd, , 

Hath oped his ponderous and marble jaws. 
To cast thee up again ! What may this mean. 
That thou, dead corse, again, in complete steel, 
Revisit'st thus the glimpses of the moon. 
Making night hideous ; and we fools of nature, 
So horribly to shake our disposition. 
With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls ? 
Say, why is this ? wherefore ? what should we do ? 

HoE. It beckons you to go away with it. 
As if it some impartment did desire 
To you alone. 

Mae. Look, with what courteous action 

It waves you to a more removed ground : 
But do not go with it. 

HoE. No, by no means. 



5 " It is quite fair to ask whether siich an exclamation would come more 
easily into a Catholic poet's head or into that of a Protestant poet ? A 
Prote'stant thinks, and probably always did think, that the right thing to 
do is always to go directly to God for help : indeed, one does not see what 
he wants a mediator for at all. But a Catholic's natural resource in danger, 
is to angels and other ministers of grace." — London Catholic Progress of 
April, 1875. 



404 Shakespeare^ front an American Point of View. 



Ham. 
Hob. 
Ham. 



Ham. 
Ghost. 
Ham. 
Ghost. 



Ham. 
Ghost. 

Ham. 

Ghost. 

Ham. 

Ghost, 



Ham. 
Ghost. 
Ham. 
Ghost, 

Ham. 



Ghost, 



It will not speak ; then I will follow it. 
Do not, my lord. 

Why, what should he the fear ? 
I do not set my life at a pin's fee ; 
A.ndfor my soul, what can it do to that, 
JSeing a thing immortal as itself? 
It waves me forth again ; — I'll follow it. 

Scene 5. — Another Fart of the Platform. 

Enter Ghost and Hamlet. 
Whither wilt thou lead me ? speak, I'll go no farther. 
Mark me. 

I will. 

My hour is almost come, 
When I to sulphttrous and tormenting flames 
Must render up myself. 

Alas, poor ghost. 
Pity me not ; but lend thy serious hearing 
To what I shall unfold. 

Speak ; I am hound to hear. 
So art thou to revenge, when thou shalt hear. 
What? 

I am thy father's spirit : 
Doom' d for a certain time to lualh the night. 
And for the day confined to lasting fires. 
Till the foul crimes, done in my days of nature. 
Are hurnt and purged away. Sut that J am forbid 
To tell the secrets of my prison house, 
I could a tale unfold, whose lightest word 
Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young hlood, 
Make thy two eyes like stars start from their spheres. 
Thy knotted and combined locks to part, 
And each particular hair to stand an-end, 
Like quills upon the fretful porcupine : 
Sut this eternal hlazon must not he 
To ears of flesh and blood. — List, list, list ! — ■ 
If thou didst ever thy dear father love, — 
OGod! 

Eevenge his foul and most unnatural murder. 
Murder ? 

Murder most foul, as in the best it is ; 
But this most foul, strange, and unnatural. 
Haste me to know 't, that I, with wings as swift 
As meditation, or the thoughts of love, 
May sweep to my revenge. 

I find thee apt ; 
And duller shouldst thou be, than the fat weed 



\Exit. 



'* Hamlet r 405 

That rots itself in ease on Lethe's wharf, 
Wouldst thou not stir in this : now, Hamlet, hear. 
'Tis given ont, that sleeping in mine orchard, 
A serpent stung me : so the whole ear of Denmark 
Is hy a forged process of my death 
Eankly abused ; but know, thou noble youth. 
The serpent that did sting thy father's life 
Now wears his crown. 

Ham. O, my prophetic soul ! my uncle ? 

Ghost. Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast, 
* * * 

Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother's hand. 
Of life, of crown, of queen, at once despoiled ; 
Cut off even in the blossom of my sin, 
TJnhouseVd, disappointed, unaneled : ^ 
No reckoning made, but sent to my account 
With all my imperfections on my head : 
O, horrible ! O, horrible ! most horrible I ' 
If thou hast nature in thee, bear it not ; 
Let not the royal bed of Denmark be 
A couch for luxury and damned incest. 
But, howsoever thou pursuest this act, 
Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive 
Against thy mother aught : leave her to heaven. 
And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge. 
To prick and sting her. Fare thee well at once. 
The glow-worm shows the matin to be near. 
And 'gins to pale his uneffectual fire : 
Adieu ! adieu ! Hamlet, remember me. [^Exit. 

Ham. O, all you host of heaven ! earth ! What else ? 

Ill Act II. Scene 2^ Polonius, while endeavouring to explain 
the character of Hamlet^s madness to the Queen, uses the follow- 
ing language : — 

And now remains, 
That we find out the cause of this effect ; 
Or, rather say, the cause of this d^efect ; 
For this effect cZefective, comes by cause : 

" These lines/' says the CatlioUe Progress (London), for April, 
1875, " look very like a reference by the author to St. Augustine, 
not unlikely to have been culled from some Catholic book of 

^ According to Hunter, this means without the viaticum and last sacra- 
ment of extreme unction; though he is inclined to change the word "dis- 
appointed" into " unassoiled," or " unabsolved," 

' This is pure Catholic agony at the idea of the pains of purgatory. 
27 



4o6 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

devotion/' And to this I may sugg-est that Shakespeare's 
devout mother, Mary Arden, must have had constantly some 
such book of religious discipline always within the boy's reach, 
about the house. '' St. Augustine says that, to look for causes 
of Reflection from good, seeing that they are <7eficient and not 
e/'ficient, is much the same as wishing to see darkness, or to hear 
silence." 

In the opening of the third act, we have the singular scene 
of feigned madness and real distraction,, which takes place 
between Hamlet and Ophelia; in which scene, perceiving that 
the weak, docile girl is playing the spy upon him, at the direction 
of her father, and has told him a falsehood in the interest of 
those against him, he harshly orders her off to a nunnery, — the 
inevitable refuge for our poet's distressful heroines, — in a tone 
which, I cannot but think, was largely justified by her petty per- 
fidy. I have already remarked, when treating of " Love's Labour's 
Lost," ^'^ Much Ado about Nothing," "Measure for Measure," 
" Merchant of Venice," *' Comedy of Errors," and other plays, 
Shakespeare's habit of sending all of his disappointed ladies to 
nunneries. That course could hardly be attributed to Lord 
Bacon, or regarded as a Protestant proclivity. 

We have further evidences of the Catholic tone and colour of 
our author's mind, in the memorable scene between Hamlet and 
his mother in this same act. The Ghost appears, but she does 
not see it, and upon its disappearance, she charges the vision 
to her agitated son's distraught condition : — 

Hamlet. Mother, for love of grace. 

Lay not that flattering unction to your soul, 
That not your trespass, but my madness speaks : 
It will hut skin and film the ulcerous place ; 
Whiles rank corruption mining all within, 
Infects unseen. Confess yourself to heaven; 
Repent whales past : avoid what is to come : 
And do not spread the compost on the weeds, 
To make them ranker. 

Let me not pass over, at this point, the first exclamation of 
Hamlet, at the opening of the above scene, when, seeing the 
Ghost enter, he exclaims, — 

A king of shreds and patches : 



* " Hamletr 407 

Save me and hover o'er me with your wings, 
You heavenly guard ! 

This, again, exhibits the Catholic tendency toward the inter- 
'inediation of the saints. 

We come now, in the progress of this act, to Shakespeare's 
adoration for royalty, and contemptuous estimation of the 
" common people." 

The cease o£ majesty 
Dies not alone ; but, like a gulf, doth draw 
What's near it, with it : it is a massy wheel, 
Fix'd on the summit of the highest mount, 
To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things 
Are mortised and adjoin'd ; which, when it falls, 
Each small annexment, petty consequence, 
Attends the hoist'rous ruin. Never alone 
Did the Icing sigh, but with a general groan. 

Act III. Scene 3. 
Act IV. Scene 3. 
Enter King attended. 
KlK a. I have sent to seek him, and to find the hody. 
How dangei-ous is it, that this man goes loose ! 
Yet must not we put the strong law on him : 
Se's loved of the distracted multitude, 
Who liTce not in their judgment, hut their eyes ; 
And where 'tis so, i^ie offender s scourge is weighed, 
But never the offence. 

Scene 5. 
The people muddied, 
ThicTc and unwholesome in their thoughts and whispers^ 
For good Polonius' death : — 

.^ M. ^ 

TP TP TV" 

Gentleman {to the King). Save yourself, my lord ; 
The ocean over-peering of his list, 
Eats not the flats with more impetuous haste, 
Than young Laertes, in a riotous head, 
O'erbears your officers ; The rabble call him lord ; 
And as the world were now but to begin, 
Antiquity forgot, custom not known, 
The ratifiers and props of every word, 
They cry. Choose we ; Laertes shall be Tcing ! 
Cajos,^ hands, and tongues, applaud it to the clouds, 
Laertes shall be Icing, Laertes Tcing ! 

^ Caps are always the syriibol with Shakespeare of the labouring classes, 
from the fact that an Act of Parliament was passed towards the close of the 



40 8 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

Queen. How clieerfully on the false trail they cry ! 
0, this is counter, you false Danish dogs. 

Enter Laeetes, armed, Danes following. 
King. What is the cause, Laertes, 

That thy rebellion looks so giant-like ? — 

Let him go, Gertrude ; do not fear our person ; 

There s such divinity doth hedge a Icing, 

That treason can hut peep to what it would. 

Acts little of his ivill.. — Tell me, Laertes, 

Why thou art thus incensed ; — Let him go, Gertrude. 

The opening of the fifth act brings us to what is regarded, 
by Lord Chief Justice Campbell, as the most complete piece of 
evidence of the legal acquirements of Shakespeare, to be found in 
all his works. I allude to the law in regard to/elo de se, which 
is developed so curiously, and yet so correctly, by the two grave- 
diggers in their humorous discussion in the churchyard, over the 
question whether the drowned Ophelia is entitled to Christian 
burial. The pathetic description of her death, by the unhappy 
queen, who assuredly was not all bad, comes properly in at this 
point : — 

QxTEEN. There is a willow grows aslant the brook, 

That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream ; 

There with fantastic garlands did she make 

Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples, 

That liberal shepherds give a grosser name. 

But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them ; 

There on the pendant boughs her coronet weeds 

Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke ; 

When down her weedy trophies, and herself, 

Pell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide ; 

And, mermaid-like, a while they bore her up : 

Which time, she chanted snatches of old tunes ; 

As one incapable of her own distress. 

Or like a creature native and indued 

Unto that element : but long it could not be, 

Till that her garments, heavy with their drink, 



fifteenth century, requiring all mechanics and labouring men to wear caps. 
Hence, the line of Eosalind, in As You Like It : — 

" Well, better wits have worn plain statute caps ; " 
And hence, also, the Liberty cap of the old Trench Eevolution, which meant 
liberty for the masses. 



" Hamlet!^ - 409 

PuU'd the poor wretch from her melodious lay 

To muddy death. Act IV. Scene 7, 

The doubt which this throws upon the poor girFs intention, 
narrowly admits her to the jealous rights of Catholic burial, and 
saves her body from being condemned by the English law, (for 
Shakespeare^s law is always English,) from being buried in a 
cross-road, with a stake driven through it. We find this doc- 
trine, both of the Church and of the statute, exhibited in the 
following scene at the grave, in which Laertes protests, to the 
officiating priest, against the religious meagreness of the cere- 
mony which is grudgingly allowed to his dead sister : — 

Laee. What ceremony else 

Pbiest. Her obsequies have been so far enlarged 

As we have warranty : Her death was doubtful ; 
And, but that great command o'er-sways the order, 
She should in ground unsanctified have lodged 
Till the last trumpet ; for charitable prayers. 
Shards, flints, and pebbles, should be thrown on her. 
Yet here she is allow'd her virgin rites, 
Her maiden strewments, and the bringing home 
Of bell and burial. 

Laee. Must there no more be done ? 

Peiest. No more be done ! 

We should profane the service of the dead. 
To sing a requiem, and such rest to her, 
As to peace-parted souls. 

Laee. Lay her i' the earth ;— 

And from her fair and unpolluted flesh 
May violets spring ! — I tell thee, churlish priest, 
A minist'ring angel shall my sister be. 
When thou liest howling. Act Y. Scene 1. 

The scene between the two grave-diggers in comic discussion 
of the law, both of the Church and of the statute, concerning 
felo de se, presents itself properly at this point : — 

Enter Two Clowns, witJi spades, Sfo. 

1 Clo. Is she to be buried in Christian burial, that wilfully seeks her own 
salvation ? 

2 Old. I tell thee, she is ; therefore make her grave straight : the crowner 
hath set on her, and finds it Christian bmial. 

1 Clo. How can that be, unless she drowned herself in her own defence ? 

2 Clo. Why, 'tis found so. 

1 Clo. It must be se offendendo ; it cannot be else. For here lies the 



4IO Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

point : If I dro\vii myself wittingly, it argues an act : and an act has three 
branches ; it is, to act, to do, and to perform : Argal, she drowned herself 
wittingly. 

2 Clo. Nay, but hear you, goodman delver. 

1 Clo. Give me leave. Here lies the water ; good : here stands the man ; 
good : If the man go to this water, and drown himself, it is, will he, nill he, 
he goes ; mark you that : but if the water come to him, and drown him, he 
drowns not himself: Argal, he that is not guilty of his own death, shortens 
not his own life. 

2 Clo. But is this law .? 

1 Clo. Ay, marry is 't ; crowner's-quest law. 

2 Clo. Will you ha' the truth on't? If this had not been a gentle- 
woman, she would have been buried out of Christian burial. 

1 Clo. Why, there thou say'st : And the more pity ; that great folks shall 
have countenance in this world to drown or hang themselves, more than their 
even Christian. — Act Y. Scene 1. 

This singular scene, and the amount of law contained in it, 
notwithstanding its excessive comicality, could not, of course, 
escape the scrutiny of Lord Chief Justice Campbell, and he 
alludes to it as '''the mine,^' which of all others in our author 
" produces the richest legal ore." He declares that the discussion 
proves " that Shakespeare had read and studied Plowden's report 
of the celebrated case of Hales v. Petit,® tried in the reign of 
Philip and Mary, and that he intended to ridicule the counsel 
who argued, and the judges who decided it.'" 

His lordship describes this case at considerable length, but as 
I find it put more clearly by Judge Holmes, in his work on the 
" Authorship of Shakespeare,''^ I will adopt that version of the 
case in preference to the version of his lordship. Judge Holmes 
says, — 

" Sir James Hales, a Judge of the Common Pleas, having 
been imprisoned for being concerned in the plot to place Lady 
Jane Grey upon the throne, and afterwards pardoned, was so 
affected in mind as to commit suicide by drowning himself in a 
river. The coroner's inquest found a verdict oifelo de se, under 
which his body was to be buried at a cross-road, with a stake 
thrust through it, and his goods and estates were forfeited to the 
crown. A knotty question arose upon the suit of his widow for 
an estate by survivorship in joint-tenancy, whether the forfeiture 
could be considered as having taken place in the lifetime of Sir 

9 Plowden's Eeport, p. 256-9. 



''Hamlet'' 411 

James Hales ; for, if it did not, slie took tlie estate by survivor- 
ship. 

" Serjeant Soutlicote arg-ued for the lady, that^ as long as Sir 
James was alive, he had not killed himself, and the moment that 
he died, the estate vested in the plaintiff. ' The felony of the 
husband shall not take away her title by survivorship, for in this 
manner of felony two things are to be considered : First, the 
cause of the death ; secondly, the death ensuing the cause ; and 
these two make the felony, and without both of them the felony 
is not consummate, and the cause of the death is the act done in 
the party's lifetime, which makes the death to follow, and the 
act which brought on the death here was the throwing himself 
voluntarily into the water, for this was the cause of his death ; 
and, if a man kills himself by a wound which he gives himself 
with a knife, or, if he hangs himself, as the wound or the hanging, 
which is the act done in the party's lifetime, is the cause of his 
death, so is the throwing himself into the water here. For, as 
much as he cannot be attainted of his own death, because he is 
dead before there is any time to attaint him, the finding of his 
death by the coroner is, by necessity of law, equivalent to an 
attainder, in fact, coming after his death. He cannot hefelo de 
se till the death is fully consummate, and the death precedes the 
felony and the forfeiture/ 

" Serjeant Walsh, on the other side, argued that the forfeiture 
had relation to the act done in the party's lifetime which was the 
cause of his death. ' Upon this, the parts of the act are to be 
considered J and the act consists of three parts. The frst is the 
imagination, which is a reflection or meditation of the mind, 
whether or no it is convenient for him to destroy himself, and 
what way it can be done. The second is the resolution, which is 
a determination of the mind to destroy himself, and to do it in 
this or that particular way. The thi?'d is the perfection, which 
is the execution of what the mind has resolved to do. And this 
perfection consists of two parts, viz., the beginning and the end. 
The beginning is the doing of the act which causes the death ; 
and the end is the death, which is only a sequel to the act. A7id 
of all the parts, the doing of the act is the greatest in the judg- 
ment of our law, and it is, in effect, the whole. The doing of the 
act is the only point which the law regards : for, until the act is 
done, it cannot be an offence to the world, and when the act is 



412 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

done, it is punishable. Inasmucli as the person who did the 
act is dead, his person cannot be punished, and, therefore, iJiere 
is no loay else to punish him but by the forfeiture of those things 
which were his own at the time of his death/ 

" Bendloe cited a case in which ' a heretic wounded himself 
mortally with a knife, and afterwards became of sound mind, and 
had the rights of Holy Church, and after died of the said wound, 
and his chattels were not forfeited ;' and Carus cited another, 
' where it appears that one who had taken sanctuary in a church 
was out in the night, and the town pursued him, and the felon 
defended himself with cliibs and stones, and would not render 
himself to the king's peace, and we struck off his head ; and the 
goods of the person killed were forfeited, for he could not be 
arraigned, because he was hilled hy his own fault, for which 
reason, ^bpon the truth of the matter found, his goods were 
forfeited. Here the inquiry before the coroner super visum 
corporis ... is equivalent to a judgment given against him in 
his lifetime, and the forfeiture has relation to the act which was 
the cause of his death, viz., the throwing himself into the 
water.^-* 

" Dyer, C. J., giving the opinion of the Court, said, ' The 
forfeiture shall have relation to the act done by Sir James Hales 
in his lifetime, which was the cause of his death, viz., the throw- 
ing himself into the water.' He made five points — ' Pirst, the 
quality of the offence; secondly, by whom the offence was com- 
mitted; thirdly, what he shall forfeit; fourthly, from what 
time ; and fifthly, if the term here shall be taken from the wife.' 
. ... As to the second point, it is an offence against nature, 
against God, and against the king. Against nature, /or every 
living thing does, hy instinct of nature, defend itself from destruc- 
tion ; and, then, to destroy one's self is contrary to nature, and 
a thing most horrible. Against God, in that it is a breach of 
his commandment, Thoib shalt not hill ; and to kill himself, by 
which he kills, in presumption, his own soul, is a greater offence 
than to kill another. Against the king, in that hereby he has 
lost a subject, and (as Brown termed it) he being the head, has 
lost one of his mystical members.' .... It was agreed by all 
the judges, ^that he shall forfeit all his goods; for Brown said 
the reason why the king shall have the goods and chattels of a 
felo de se . . . . is not because he is oitt of Holy Church, so that, 



^'Hamlet" 413 

for that reason, the bishop will not meddle with them ; . . . . 
but for the loss of his subject, and for the breach of his peace, 
and for the evil example given to his people, and not in respect 
that Holy Church will not meddle with them, for he is adjudged 
none of the members of Holy Church.' 

" As to the fourth point, viz. to what time the forfeiture shall 
have relation ; the forfeiture here shall have relation to the time 
of the original offence committed, which was the cause of the 
death, and that was the throwing himself into the water, which 

was done in his lifetime, and this act was felony So that 

the felony is attributed to the act, which is always done by a 
living man, and in his lifetime ; for Sir James Hales was dead, 
and how came he to his death ? By drowning. And who 
drowned him? Sir James Hales. And when did he drown 
him ? In his lifetime. So that Sir James Hales, being alive, 
caused Sir James Hales to die ; and the act of the living man 
was the death of the dead man. But how can he be said to be 
punished alive, when the punishment comes after his death? 
Sir, this can he done no other way than by divesting out of him 
his title and property, from the time of the act done which was 
the cause of his death, viz. the throwing himself into the water.''^ 

Lord Campbell, of course, argues from this case that Shake- 
speare had a very considerable knowledge of the law ; and Judge 
Holmes, who is the chief expounder of the Baconian theory. 



"A careful comparison of these passages may satisfy the 
critical reader that the author of the play had certainly read this 
report of Plowden. They are not adduced here as amounting to 
proof that the author was any other than William Shakespeare, 
but rather as a circumstance bearing upon the antecedent pro- 
babilities of the case ; for there is not the slightest ground for a 
behef, on the facts which we know, that Shakespeare ever looked 
into Plowden''s Reports; while it is quite certain that Francis 
Bacon, who commenced his legal studies at Gray^s Inn in the 
very next year after the date of Plowden^s preface, did have 
occasion to make himself familiar with that work, some years 
before the appearance of " Hamlet.^'' And the mode of reasoning 
and the manner of the Eeport, bordering so nearly upon the 
ludicrous, would be sure to impress the memory of Bacon, whose 
nature, as we know, was singularly capable of wit and humour." 



414 Shakespeare, f7^oin an American Point of View. 

It thus appears, according" to Lord Campbell and Judge 
Holmes, that the author of " Hamlet/^ whoever he was, must 
have read this Report of Plowden, which his lordship, who is the 
most emphatic of the two, declares he not only must have read, 
but studied. Now, I am not so positive about this point, though 
I think it not unlikely that both of them are right. It would 
have been very natural for a man of Shakespeare's keen sense of 
the ridiculous, on hearing this case of Hales v. Petit discussed 
by the wits, poets, and lawyers, who spent their hours of relaxa- 
tion in the bar-room of the hospitable '' Maiden,'' to have asked 
one of his legal friends to lend him Plowden for his more com- 
plete enjoyment of the case ; but it is quite as likely that he 
acquired a full knowledge of the whole of it, by the repeated 
discussions and heated disputes which such an exceptional pro- 
ceeding would be sure to have given rise to in a first-class 
London tavern. Doubtless, it was re-acted there, after the 
fashion of the comic trial-scene between Prince Hal and Falstatf 
at the "Boar's Head" in Eastcheap, and the parts of Serjeants 
Southcote and Wright, Chief Justice Dyer, and, possibly, the 
dead Sir James and Dame Margaret his widow, distributed 
among the tipplers and roysterers of the occasion. Certainly 
there could have been no rarer fun to such a mind as Shake- 
speare's ; and in this way, perhaps, its comicality became trans- 
posed into one of the most peculiar productions of his comic 
genius, through the inimitable and immortal dialogue of. the 
grave-diggers. On the other hand, while Shakespeare would 
have been sure to view the case of Hales v. Petit in its most 
ludicrous aspect, and to have embodied it accordingly, I think it 
may be received as equally certain, that the mind of Bacon 
would have entertained the argument only with the gravity of a 
lawyer, and have incarnated it, had he touched it at all, not as a 
piece of fun, but as a precedent and serious authority. 

It must be observed also, that in the time of Shakespeare 
there were no newspapers for the circulation of current infor- 
mation among the people. The art of printing had only been 
devised by Caxton in 1467, barely a hundred years before, and, 
though an octavo printed single news-sheet made its appearance 
in the latter part of the sixteenth century, it contained scarcely 
anything beyond a few advertisements and the movements of 
the court. London taverns, in the time of Shakespeare, there- 



^' Hamlet r 415 

fore, were the resorts of lawyers, scholars, attorneys^ clerks, and, 
sonietimes, of judges and personages of very high degree. The 
" Mermaid/^ in Bread Street, which seems to have been the 
favourite resort of our poet, was frequented by a club founded 
by Sir Walter Raleigh ; and here Raleigh himself, Ben Jonson, 
Beaumont, Fletcher, Shelden, Cotton, Carew, Martin, Donne, 
and others, their chosen companions, met for social and convivial 
enjoyment — I dare not add, for the more modern solace of pipes 
and tobacco, because 

The fat weed 
That rots itself in ease on Lethe's wharf, 

though then recently brought home by Raleigh, had not yet 
fallen into common use.* 

"There (says Fuller) all the students of the literature and 
manners of those days have reasonably agreed in placing the 
scene of the wit-combats between Shakespeare and Jonson,''' the 
fame of which had reached Fuller's time, and caused him to 
imagine the encounter of the two, like that between a Spanish 
great galleon and an English man-of-war; Jonson, like the 
former, built far higher in learning, and solid, but slow in his 
performances; Shakespeare, like the latter, less in bulk, but 
lighter in movement, turning and tacking nimbly, and taking 
eveiy advantage by the quickness of his wit and invention." 

^ It has been said that Shakespeare never gave any evidence of his know- 
ledge of tobacco ; but I think that " The fat weed which rots itself in ease 
on Lethe's wharf," is a distinct reference to it. 

2 What things have we seen 

Done at the " Mermaid"! heard words that have been 

So nimble, and so full of subtle flame, 

As if that every one from whom they came 

Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest, 

And had resolved to live a fool the rest 

Of his dull life ; then when there hath been thrown 

Wit able enough to justify the town 

For three days past, wit that might warrant be 

For the whole city to talk foolishly 

Till that were cancell'd, and, when that was gone. 

We left an air behind us which alone 

Was able to make the two next companies 

Eight witty, though but downright fools, more wise. 

Letter to Hen Jonson. 



4i6 Shakespeare^ from a7i American Point of View. 

But to return to the question as to the extent of Shakespeare's 
legal acquirements, I think that Lord Campbell makes a much 
stronger point for the affirmative, than in the grave-diggers' 
scene, when he says, — 

^' Hamlet's own speech, on taking in his hand what he sup- 
posed might be the skull of a lawyer, abounds with lawyer-like 
thoughts and words :" — 

Where be his quiddits now, his quillets, his cases, his tenures, and his 
tricks ? Why does he suffer this rude knave now to knock him about 
the sconce with a dirty shovel, and will not tell him of his action of 
battery ? Humph ! This fellow might be in's time a great buyer of land, 
with his statutes, his recognizances, his fines, his double vouchers, his 
recoveries : is this the fine of his fines, and the recovery of his recoveries, to 
have his fine pate full of fine dirt ? will his vouchers vouch him no more of 
his purchases, and double ones too, than the length and breadth of a pair of 
indentures. 

" These terms of art," adds his lordship, " are all used seem- 
ingly with a full knowledge of their import; and it would 
puzzle some practising barristers with whom I am acquainted 
to go over the whole seriatim, and to define each of them satis- 
factorily." 

His lordship also finds in the following allusion to the dis- 
puted territory, which was the cause of war between Norway 
and Poland, a substratum of law in Shakespeare's mind : — 

We go to gain a little patch of ground. 

That hath in it no profit but the name. 

To pay five ducats, five, I would not farm it, 

Nor will it yield to Norway or the pole 

A ranker rate, should it be sold in fee. 

How Shakespeare, or any intelligent tradesman of his time, 
could have known less law than is indicated by the Xj&xm. fee 
simple, I cannot well conceive. 

"Earlier in the play," continues his lordship, "Marcellus 
inquires what was the cause of the warlike preparations in 
Denmark, — 

And why such daily cast of brazen cannon. 

And foreign mart for implements of war ? 

W Ivy such impress of sJiipwrights, whose sore tash 

Does not divide the Sunday from the weeh ? 

Such confidence, in England, has there always been in Shake- 
speare's general accuracy, that this passage has been quoted. 



''Hamlet." 4.1 y 

both by text-writers and by judges on the bench, as an authority 
upon tlie legality of the press-gang, and upon the debated ques- 
tion whether sldpwnglits, as well as common seamen, are liable to 
be pressed into the service of the royal navy/' 

Finally, says his lordship, — 

" Hamlet, when mortally wounded in Act V. Scene 3, repre- 
sents that death comes to him in the shape of a sheriff's officer, 
as it were, to take him into custody under a capias ad satiS' 
faciendum : — 

Had I but time (as this fell serjeant, Death, 

Is strict in his arrest), Oh ! I could tell you, &c." 

I cheerfully leave this to the reader without argument ; but I 
regret that, in concluding my review of the plays of Shake- 
speare, in this analysis of the tragedy of " Hamlet,'' I am 
obliged to point out what certainly looks like a wilful neglect 
of duty on the part of my Lord Chief Justice Campbell. At 
the request of Mr. J. Payne Collier, a distinguished commen- 
tator, his lordship, being esteemed the most fit man in England, 
undertook the task of investigating the text of the Shakespeare 
writings for evidences of the legal acquirements of the author. 
Having accepted this responsibility and the honours which 
pertained to it, he was bound to perform the task, not only 
diligently and fully, but also impartially, to any and every 
interest which might arise or be comprehended in the premises. 
I concede, that, in the main, his lordship has done so (though I 
have not been always able to agree with him), and I admit 
moreover, that the observation of his lordship has been so 
vigilant, and his scrutiny so minute, that he has found proofs of 
our poet's legal erudition even in his casual but correct use of 
such terms as " purchase," " several," " fee," and " fee-farm." 
Nay, he has even gone to the extent, in the play we had last in 
hand (" Lear "), of conceding to him a comprehensive legal 
insight, through the clown's declaration, that " the breath of an 
un-feed lawyer " was worth nothing, because it cost nothing. 
His ,lordship's estimation of the weight of these legal expres- 
sions, I cheerfully confess ought to be a great deal better than 
mine (though I must assume my privilege of disagreeing with 
him), but I think I have a right to complain, along with the 
rest of the world whom his lordship agreed to serve in this 



41 8 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

matter^ for his wilfully concealing a portion of the evidence 
when he found it rasped his own profession^ or^ I should rather 
say, when it touched the reputation of the lofty class of legal 
dig-nitaries, to which his lordship's learning and ability had 
justly raised him. 

I observed, in my review of " Lear/^ that, notwithstanding 
the great diligence which Lord Campbell had shown in analyzing 
the Shakespearian text, he had, singularly enough, overlooked, 
or, perhaps, intentionally left unnoticed, two of the most striking 
evidences of Shakespeare's knowledge of the administration of 
the law, as it then seemed to be administered in Great Britain. 
Both of these instances occur in the famous scene in Act IV. 
Scene 6, where the mad old king, fantastically dressed in 
flowers, holds a sort of court upon the heath : — 

Leae {to the hlinded Gloster). Look witli thine ears. See how yon' 
justice rails upon yon' simple thief. Hark, in thine ear. Change places ; 
and, handy-dandy, which is the justice, which is the thief? 

Again, — 

Through tatter 'd clothes small vices do appear ; 

Hohes andfurr'd goions hide all. Plate sin with gold 

And the strong lance of justice hurtless hreaJcs ; 

Arm it in rags, a pigmy's straw will pierce it. 

None does offend, none, I say none ; I'll ahle 'em. {^Offers money. 

Take that of me, my friend, who have the power 

To seal the accuser's lips. 

My remark upon the above was, '' Surely Lord Campbell, 
who accepted his first legal instance in this play of * Lear ' 
as to an ' un-feed lawyer,' from the mouth of a fool, might have 
given some attention to the above powerful lines, though from 
the lips of a madman.-" All this was suppositively put against 
Lord Campbell as a case of possible oversight -, but the following 
evidence of his lordship's tampering with the testimony, or 
rather concealment, of the facts, for the protection of the repu- 
tation of the English bench, disposes of that theory. Like the 
above instances from " Lear," the suppressed extract affords one 
of the most conspicuous evidences of Shakespeare's intimate 
knowledge of the corruption of the English judiciary that could 
possibly be presented. It occurs in the language of the King, 
in the third scene of Act III. of " Hamlet," where, stung by 



"Hamlet." 419 

remorse, his majesty is about asking Heaven's forgiveness for 
his crimes. He says, — 

In the con-upted currents of the world, 
Offence's gilded hand may shove ly justice ; 
And oft 'tis seen, the ^vicked prize itself 
Siiys out the laiv) : But 'tis not so above : 
There is no shuffling, there the action lies 
In his true nature ; and we ourselves compell'd, 
Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults, 
To give in evidence. 

This terrible accusation against the integrity of the English 
judiciary Lord Campbell would not give ; so, without reflecting 
injuriously upon his lordship, I am forced, by the necessities of 
criticism, to repeat the remark I made at the close of my review 
of the tragedy of " Lear ; " that '' of one thing we may be 
certain, Sir Francis Bacon, who, when Lord Chancellor, was 
sent to the Tower for selling his decisions Jbr money while 
presiding on the bench, would never have written these allusions 
to judicial corruption had he been the author of the Shake- 
speare plays; or, had he done so in 1605, when 'Lear^ was 
composed, he would have expunged these condemnations of his 
own crime when the Shakespearian folio was revised and pub- 
lished in 1623.^' 



|ait Ml. 

THE MUSICAL OE EUPHONIC 
TEST. 

SHAKESPEAEE ANJ) BACON'S RESPECTIVE SENSE 
OF MELODY, OR EAR FOR MUSIC. 



38 



The Euphonic lest, 423 



CHAPTER XXXVII. 

THE EUPHONIC TEST. 

Having finished my scrutiny of the Shakespearian dramas^ with 
the view of exhibiting the writer's aristocratic inclinations, his 
contempt for the labouring classes, his religious predilections, 
and his defective knowledge of the law, in order to mark the 
width of distance, in the way of personality, between him and 
Bacon, I come now to the final test, whether the essays of the 
latter and the plays of our poet could have been the productions 
of one and the same mind. This question I take to be susceptible 
of absolute demonstration, according to the laws of elocution and 
of musical sound. A writer's musical sense, or ear for music, 
governs the euphony and tread of his expression. This ear for 
sound, following the instincts of taste, and falling always toward 
one cadence and accord, insensibly forms what writers call a s(i/le. 
This style, when thoroughly fixed, enables us to distinguish the 
productions of one author from another, and is usually more 
reliable as a test of authorship even than handwriting, inasmuch 
as the latter may be counterfeited, while a style of thought, 
united with a form of expression consonant to that tone of 
thought being a gift, cannot be imitated as handwriting can. 
A fixed style, like that either of Bacon or of Shakespeare, is, 
therefore, undoubtedly, susceptible of analysis and measurement 
by the laws both of music and of elocution. Having been satis- 
fied, from the first, that this test would prove decisive, summon- 
ing, -as it almost does, the august shades of the two dead giants 
into court, I reserved it for the last. Being unwilling, however, 
in a matter of so much importance, to depend solely upon myself, 
I addressed a letter to Professor J. W. Taverner, a very high 
authority in elocution and delles lettres in the United States, re- 



424 Shakespeare^ from an American Point of View. 

questing an analysis and comparison of the Plays and Essays from 
his standpoint in art, and asking a decision, as far as that critical 
examination would enable him to give one, of the problem in- 
volved. The following is the essay of the Professor on the text 
above given : — 

The respective Styles of Shahespeare and Baeon^ judged hy the 
Laws of Elocutionary Analysis and " Melody of Speech." 

BY PEOFESSOE J. W. TAVERNER. 

Dear Sir, — I will now set forth, as plainly as I can, the theory 
of Shakespearian versification, to which you refer. As for the 
Baconian theory of the authorship of Shakespeare^s plays, which 
I remember to have been first started by Miss Bacon, at New- 
haven — I prejudged it. It appeared to me, by the force of a 
single reflection, to be as unworthy of examination, as to seri- 
ously consider if two bodies could occupy the same place at the 
same time. 

The reflection to which I refer is this : That when we regard 
the works of great men — the sculpture and paintings of Michael 
Angelo, the architecture of Inigo Jones, the dramatic works of 
Shakespeare, and, I am obliged to mention for my arguments, 
the works of Lord Bacon — we see the rounded thought of " a life,^-" 
as it grew and spread — like one of those giant trees of California, 
with its roots in the earth just where it started. The life-work 
of each had its roots in an idea, a soil, a genius (not an industry), 
from which all sprang. Each such work is, as I said, the expres- 
sion of " a life,^' and of a life commenced and continued under 

^ Bacon's style was clear and strong, well-balanced and rliytlimical, but not 
sweet. Meares in the " Wit's Treasury," published in 1598, speaks of 
Shakespeare as tJie mellifluous and Jioney-tongued Shahespeare, in whom 
" the sweet and witty soul of Ovid lies," as witness his Venus and Adonis, 
his Lucrece, and his sugred sonnets among his private friends. Chettle, in 
1603, thus alludes to him while reproaching him for his silence on the death 
of Queen Elizabeth :— 

Nor doth the silver-tongued Melicert 
Drop from his honied muse one sable tear. 
Ben Jonson, in his eulogy on " The memory of Shakespeare," says, — 

Even so the race 
Of Shakespeare's mind and manners brightly shines 
In his tcell-turn'd and truly filed lines. G. W. 



The Euphonic Test. 425 

certain auspices. He_, therefore, that wrought the one, could 
not have performed the work incident to the other, without 
entirely new conditions from the start. Plow much less pos- 
sible is it that one could have accomplished the joint works 
of any tioo. 

Not the least among these, but, perhaps, the greatest wonder 
of them all is Shakespeare. The world has been accustomed to 
regard the author of these marvellous plays, as the wonder of the 
world and the king of men. It is certain, whoever he was, that 
from childhood he was growing to the work, cultivating his 
imagination, accumulating his materials, his mind left to its bent, 
but little interfered with from without; even too severe and 
strict an education, would have dwarfed his imagination, and 
stopped this mighty mind in its career. Its education must 
greatly have been an education of choice. 

And now we are asked to concede that these plays, and all that 
they contain, needed no such one-sided devotion and mental pro- 
clivity, and was not so much of a work after all, for Lord Bacon, 
whose chief and earnest devotion of his mind and time was not 
surrendered to this work, (but is well understood and fully admitted 
by his biography to have been exerted in a different direction,) 
yet supplemented these dramatic works as a mere pastime, in 
hours of relaxation from severe and absolute duties and labours. 

It is not so unreasonable, I am willing to admit, apart from 
historical proof to the contrary, to dispute the authorship of 
Shakespeare^s plays, biit utterly unreasonable to think to find the 
author in one, who was at the same period filling the world other- 
wise with a light, an effulgence of brightness of only a some- 
what lesser magnitude. So Lord Bacon is ruled out, by a sort of an 
intellectual alibi, for he was somewhere else busily engrossed with 
something else. To have done the one work, precludes the possi- 
bility of liaving- done the other, as it would for both an oak and 
a pine-tree to grow from the same seed. Understand me, that if 
they were both works of mere literary labour, like those of 
Schlegel (for so I judge Schlegel), this would not apply, but being 
botli works of genius, and one at least (the plays) of both genius 
and of art, this does apply. 

As the handwriting of any one man among thousands can be 
determined by experts, so no lengthy examples of the style — the 
expression and language of any two authors of note, can fail to 



426 Shakespeare^ from an American Point of View. 

indicate the individual mind to which the one or the other belongs. 
The handwriting is so determinate^ because dependant on such 
an infinite combination of circumstances — the whole conformation 
and structure of the hand ; the relation of the thumb and fingers 
that hold the pen, the angle by which they are inclined, the 
length of the lever from the point where the hand rests ; but still 
further by those more delicate indications through the action 
of the nerves .and the characteristics of the mind of the chiro- 
grapher. 

But how much more extensive are the combinations that con- 
stitute the style, the language, the adornments, the illustrations, 
the figurative expression, the place of the emphasis, the form of 
the phrases, the source of the metaphors, the character of the 
similes; but our enumeration would become too long; then, 
finally, that emanation of the rhythm of the breathing, and of the 
pulse, and the endowments of the ear, that marshals all those 
forms and phrases in a certain order with reference to melody and 
cadence. 

To make up the characteristics of some of these, what a com- 
bination of antecedents ! Every day that the author lived, every 
trouble, happiness, and accident that he experienced, every book 
that he chanced to read, every study that he earnestly prosecuted, 
every virtue and every vice that grew in his character, every 
trait and bias and inclination in science, in theology, in philosophy, 
and music, contributed to produce and form the united result. 

We shall therefore proceed to judge, by these signs, whether 
it is not impossible that the works of Shakespeare could have been 
written by Lord Bacon, and equally so that those of Bacon could 
have been written by Shakespeare. 

We can readily detect, as a peculiarity appertaining to diflPerent 
writers, certain repeated forms, showing that every writer exhibits 
a fashion, or uses some geometrical or metrical arrangement in 
which the words instinctively place themselves. I presume, that 
with some authors, and most certainly with Shakespeare, it might 
require a tedious examination to find out what prevails, but, with 
Bacon, we are so far fortunate, it is scarcely possible to read a 
page without detecting more than one such prevalent habit. 

I shall present examples, sufficient in number, and those 
taken solely from the " Essays,^' and, when they are brought 
together, I think that it will seem quite unnecessary to state that 



The Ettphonic Test. 427 

the same repetitions (I mean in form only)^ cannot be produced 
from the pages of Shakespeare. 

Upon examination of the Hmited poetry which we have from 
the pen of Bacon ["The translation of certain Psalms into 
English verse '^], I find nothing to criticize. Like unto Shake- 
speare, he takes good note of any deficiency of syllabic pulsation, 
and imparts the value but of one syllable to the dissyllables 
"heaven/-' ''wearest/'' "many/' "even/' "goeth;'' — and to 
" glittering/' and " chariot/' but the value of two, precisely as 
Shakespeare would. But we have no means of ascertaining if 
he would have pronounced " ambitious " as four syllables, as 
Shakespeare invariably does, and as the reader may find if he 
will consult Mark Antony's oration. 

On the one side of this investigation, therefore, we are confined 
to what may be revealed in prose composition. 

The outcome of the life-long process to which we have referred, 
by which the style of a writer is formed — tliat feature of it to 
which our treatment of this subject, for the present, relates — is 
the most subtle ; for we have to investigate that of which the 
writer himself was, possibly, the most unconscious — that which, 
like his gait or some other habit, has perhaps received no posiiive 
attention whatever. Yet, it may be held that nothing becomes 
more rigid and fixed than the mould and matrix in which his 
thoughts are ultimately fashioned and expressed. The modes of 
thinking would, in some instances, have to be identical, to pro- 
duce identical melodies of speech. 

In Shakespeare's prose we shall find that all this is mar- 
vellously free and varied, and that his blank verse conforms 
strictly to a certain set of chimes. In Bacon, besides Latin 
forms we shall not lack examples of a certain sort of duplicates 
and triplicates, antithetic parallelisms, and harmonic or alternate 
phrases (and, to use a strong Baconianism), and the liJce. 

A distinguished reviewer says that " Bacon, like Sydney, was 
the warbler of poetic prose." And this is true, not solely in the 
sense of using poetic illustration, an illustration identified with 
the development of thought, the close combination of the in- 
tellectual and the imaginative, but in his adherence to a frequent 
repetition of prose melodies. But they have not the rhythm of 
the beat of the ocean on the sea-shore like those of Shakespeare. 
They resemble rather, in some instances, the formula of the Rule 



428 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

of Three ; and others, showing the mathematical mind of the 
author, are constructed precisely in form, as that, 1 a equals 
% h; % a equals 4 h. And others are like three times three are 
nine, three times four are twelve, and three times five are fifteen. 

Let us give some illustrations of these : — 

'' A man cannot speak to his son but as a father, to his wife 
but as a husband, to his enemy but upon terms." 

" Crafty men contemn studies, simple men admire them, and 
wise men use them.'' 

" Where some ants carry corn, and some their young, and some 
go empt}'-." " Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for 
ability." " The chief use for delight is in, etc., for ornament is, 
etc., and for ability in, etc." " Reading maketh a full man, con- 
ference a ready man, and writing an exact man." " For they 
cloud the mind, they lose friends, they check with business." 
" They dispose kings to tyranny, husbands to jealousy, wise men 
to irresolution." 

But in all this there is an obvious rhythm, every member is 
equally balanced. Eor compare the above with the following, 
where each member is drawn out longer : — 

" The advantage ground to do good, the approach to kings 
and principal persons, and the raising of a man's own fortunes." 

There is no end to Bacon's repetition of these triple clauses 
always equally balanced : — 

" Some of prey, some of game, some of quarrel." " Desires of 
profit, of lust, of revenge." " Give ear to precept, to laws, to 
religion," " of books, of sermons, of harangues." " He tosseth 
his thoughts more easily, he marshaleth them more orderly, he 
seeth how they look when they are turned into words." 

For the abundance of forms such as these has it been said, 
that no author was ever so concise as Bacon. Yet the question 
may be asked, if Shakespeare had to put the same thoughts as 
the following, would he express them in the same way ? " Some 
books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to 
be chewed and digested." 

Distinguished Shakespearian commentators, who will reject^ 
as being unsafe to adopt, many critical arguments founded upon 
the merit or demerit of certain passages, or even of an entire 
play, will attach the greatest importance to any similarity or 
dissimilarity in the versification. Nothing is regarded as a 



The Eziphonic Test. 429 

surer indication of authenticity than sucli external signs. 
Bacon, himself, gives testimony to the weight and value of such 
evidence, for he himself relates that Queen EHzabeth, being 
incensed with a certain book dedicated to my Lord of Essex, 
expressed an opinion that there was treason in it, and would not 
be persuaded that it was his writing whose name was to it ; but 
that it had some more mischievous author, and said, with great 
indignation, that she would have him racked, to produce his 
author. ^^I replied,^-* says Bacon, ^''Nay, Madam, he is a 
doctor ; never rack his person, but rack his style ; let him have 
pen, ink, and paper, and help of books, and be enjoined to 
continue the story where it breaketh off, and I will undertake, 
by collating the styles, to judge whether be were the author 
or no.^' 

Of this part of the style, which is simply addressed to the ear, 
and not unto the mind, or limited to some faculty of it that 
might be regarded as the counterpart of the eye, has possessed 
such an attraction for some persons that they have become 
thereby attached to certain, authors, and have made them their 
constant companions, chiefly for this sesthetic kind of grati- 
fication. 

It is said that Lord Byron made Disraeli^s " Literary Charac- 
ters " his inseparable companion, though I may infer it was for 
the sake of the endless variety of intellectual experiences, with 
which Byron would doubtless have felt so much active sympathy. 

What but this music of language produced the great fasci- 
nation of Ossian^s poems ? I doubt if it were not this which 
constituted the chief effect of Sterne, and made him for a time 
a household work. 

It is certainly the great and unique charm of Edgar Allan 
Poe. 

It has a marvellous attraction for the young, upon whom will 
be often produced an indelible impression, thus derived through 
example and admiration. So, from a life association, springs up 
the various habitual intonations of the Scotch, the Irish, the 
English, and the American, that you may know them, meet 
them in whatever part of the world you may. 

No writer, however intellectually great or independent he may 
afterwards become, but in his day had his bias, and has been 
influenced by the fascination of another. And two men, who 



43 o Shakespeare^ from an American Point of View. 

are contemporaries, thoug-li they may be attracted alike and 
come under the same influence, yet in its blending with their 
individual natures, and modified more or less by that receptivity 
derived from previous preparation to submit them to the im- 
pression ; and, as the nature of the one would be to absorb less 
or to reflect more, the result would be invariably difierent. 

There is nothing so characteristic as the acquired and natural 
endowments of the mind of an author, that shows the true metal 
of the mine from which they are taken, as the similes which he 
employs. All such anologies are just such as most readily occur 
to the mind of the writer. How difierent will they be with 
different men. In Shakespeare, those of his that are sui generis 
are drawn from the forces of nature ; he goes at once to the 
fountain head — he does not borrow them at second hand, nor 
look into the accidents of life for an illustration. Those of 
Bacon, on the other hand, are such as are suggested by the 
habit of a close observation of life and manners, of the obser- 
vances of the court, of the dictates of prudence, of the experience 
and moral allowance of the lawyer — they may be drawn from 
nature, but it is nature as exhibited in the life of the animal, its 
sagacity and cunning, and qualities that help to self-preserva- 
tion : as in that one of his wherein he says, '^ As among beasts, 
those which are weakest in the course, are yet nimblest in the 
turn, as it is betwixt the greyhound and the hare.'^ Very 
shrewd indeed, but therein it has the mental stamp of Lord 
Bacon. He has put his mark upon it : shrewdness, the quickest 
and most responsive faculty of the individual character. 

The simile is as a spark that is to be elicited from an 
electrically-charged substance; the moment for the spark has 
come, it can't deliberate how it shall deport itself, there is so 
much of it, or so little, according to circumstances. Thus 
nothing is so sure an indication of the man. When he projects 
the simile, he looks in upon himself. He is confined to nothing. 
There is the storehouse — a glance only, and he picks up the 
brightest gem that suits his purpose. Be he rich or poor, 
parsimonious or prodigal, he must wear the robes suited to his 
state and station. 

Similes as mental products, are very distinct from all other 
forms of figurative language. A simile is unique. Metaphor 
and such like may belong to only a ^art of a phrase, there may 



The Euphonic Test. 431 

be but a few words with a figurative meaning introduced within 
a sentence ; but a simile is complete. It has its own beginning 
and ending. Bacon has to accompany some of his with an 
explanation. Here is one with a double explanation : — 

" Like choler^ which is the humour that maketh men active, 
earnest, and full of alacrity, and stirring if it be not stopped ; 
but if it be stopped, and cannot have its way, it becometh as 
dark, and thereby malign and venomous ; so, &c.^^ 

Where could you find in Shakespeare a simile constructed like 
this ? 

To determine more positively the impress of indivicluality 
which this form, above all others, supplies, I shall place alongside 
of Shakespeare and Bacon, those also of Shelley and of the Bible. 

The unification of the simile, both in structure and execution, 
IS a peculiarity attaching generally to all those of the Bible, of 
Shakespeare, and of Shelley, and is so essential an attribute for 
the consideration of the elocutionist, because, through the least 
failure, either in conception or execution, in this regard, vague, 
false, or ridiculous meanings have sometimes been conveyed, both 
on the stage and in the sacred desk. This necessary compliance 
in elocution is but the conforming of the delivery to the 
psychological conditions under which the simile had its partu- 
rition in the mind of the author. To take example from stage 
utterances : — 

And Pity, like a naked, new-horn hahe. 
Striding the blast, 

has been so pronounced as if " the naked new-born babe " was 
striding the blast. 

Or heaven's cherubim, horsed 
Upon the sightless coursers of the air ; 

as if " the cherubim " was intended as horsed upon the sightless 
coursers of the air. 

It is Pity, the bold figure and personification which Macbeth 
has suddenly introduced, which thus conveys its pitiful tale of 
assassination and murder, and starts the tears in every eye. 

Then, again, in the first part of the same speech : — 

Sesides, this Duncan 
Sath borne his faculties so meek, hath been 
So clear in his great office, that his virtues 



432 Shakespeare, froih an American Point of View. 

Will plead lilce angels trum.'pet tongued, against 
The deep damnation of his talcing off. 

I am almost afraid to say what distinguished elocutionists — if 
tragedians, whose elocution has invariably been mere blind 
experiment, may be called such — have spoken these lines, as if 
the thought were " angels trumpet-tongued/-* instead of its 
appearing that Duncan's virtues would plead trumpet-tongued. 
The punctuation which should not be suffered to mislead, is the 
cause of some of these errors. 

This essential attribute of the simile I shall show hereafter as 
peculiarly attaching to those of Shelley, and, however lengthy 
any simile might be, that his mind embraced it like a single ray 
of light emanating therefrom. 

In the following example from the Bible either the presence of' 
the commas, or ignorance of that elocutionary feature in the simile, 
which is to render it in its entirety, has led to similar faults 
(Psalm i. 3) :— 

And he shall he lilce a tree, planted hy the rivers of boater, which 
hringeth forth his fruit in his season. 

This, when rendered disjunctively, '' and he shall he lilce a tree" 
we cannot see wherein he is like a tree. Nor can we perceive 
how he can be " like a tree planted by the rivers of water ;•'■' for 
that is to be carried away by the flood : '' that hringeth forth his 
fruit " is now too late. The light is thus broken and scattered. 
But presented as a unit, having one continuous flow of the voice, 
the sense is plain. 

Again, in Psalm xix. 6, with the reading of which every- 
body is so familiar, and which has been heard so often, thus : — 

Which is as a bridegroom .... coming out of his chamber, 
And rejoiceth as a strong man . ... to run a race. 

Now, by this disjunctive reading, we would not know whether 
" coming out of his chamber " was predicated of the sun, or of 
the bridegroom, nor whether " to run a race " referred to the 
bridegroom, the sun, or the strong man. But the simile, pre- 
served in its entirety, and given to the ear in a compact form, 
is full of energy and meaning : — 

Which is " as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber" 

And rejoiceth . ..." as a strong man to run a race." 



The Euphonic Test. 433 

How little of tliis character can be imparted to any simile^ so 
conceived as to carry an explanation afterwards like this one from 
Bacon: — 

Tiihe hats amongst birds, tJiey fly hy twiliglit. 

I introduce this, at this point, to show that there may be a 
radical difference in the manner a simile may spring up in the 
mind. This latter form is indicative of a mental habit entirely 
distinct from the above examples, and if we shall find hereafter 
that no such mental habit attaches to the author of Shakespeare's 
plays, and yet is almost the invariable method with Bacon, it 
will be all-sufficient of itself, without the argument of the 
enormous difference in the similes themselves^ and the sources 
from which they are derived. 

Shelley abounds in similes, more so than any other poet. In 
the " Skylark " we have a string of them^ if I may use the 
phrase, each simile being as a bead^ distinct in character and 
colour, that is to be separately threaded. The elocution demands 
that the mind shall not be taken up with the parts, but embrace 
the whole : it must not be allowed to rest on '^ the glow-worm,'' 
but on all that is said about it : — 

Like a poet hidden 
In the light of thought 
Singing hymns unbidden 
Till the world is wrought 
To sympathy, with hopes, and fears it heeded not. 

Like a high-horn maiden 
• In a palace tower, 
Soothing her love-laden 
Soul in secret hour 
"With music sweet as love that overflows her bower. 

Like a glow-worm golden 
In a dell of dew 
Scattering unbeh olden 
Its aeriel hue 
Amidst the flowers, and grass that screen it from the view. 

Like a rose embower'd 
In its own green leaves 
By warm winds deflower 'd 



434 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

Till tlie scent it gives 

Makes faint witli too much sweet, 

These heavy-winged thieves. 

Sound of vernal showers 
On the twinkling grass. 
Eain-awaken'd flowers, 
All that ever was 
Joyous and clear and fresh thy music doth surpass. 

Further examples : " Like a wolf, that had smelt a dead child 
out/'' [the Spring] " Like the spirit of love felt everywhere/' 
[panted] " Like a doe in the noon-tide/' 

No one can mistake in pereeiving- the individual character of 
the mind, if not its peculiarity, that produced the whole of these. 
They are very beautiful ; hut there is a peculiar sentiment about 
all of them that they would be at once pronounced as Shelley's, 
and not one of them could possibly be assigned to Shakespeare. 

SIMILES FEOM SHAKESPEAEE. 

From Othello. 

Like to the Pontic Sea 
Whose icy current and compulsive course 
Ne'er knows retiring ebb ; but keeps due on, 
To the Propontic and the Hellespont. 

From Senry Y. 

Let it pry [the eye] through " the portage of the head 
Like the brass cannon." 

Let the brow o'erwhelm it, 
As fearfully " as doth a galled rock 
O'erhang and jutty his confounded base, 
Swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean." 

I see you stand " like greyhounds in the slips 
Straining upon, the start." 

From Macbeth. 

And " overcome us like a summer's cloud " 
Without our special wonder. 

i.e., No more than as a summer's cloud. 

No one can fail to recognize the mental stamp of Shelley in 



The Etiphonic Test. 435 

the similes quoted from lihn ; and as manifestly is there present 
the individual impress, the boldness and daring of the one and 
the same hand in those taken from Shakespeare. 

What a corruscation of poetic force and beauty appertains to 
each ! I speak of those of Shakespeare and of Shelley, and yet 
the peculiar brilliance of each is so distinct, that, like two gems 
of fabulous value in the hands of a judge, the one could not be 
mistaken for the other. But it is not needful to judge these two 
minds one with the other, but in the light of them, to view the 
handiwork of Lord Bacon, in the same direction, to examine his 
similes; and not with the intention to discover a dull stone 
against a brilliant, but to prove it, however solid, and true, and 
genuine, certainly not one of the same class. 

" Glorious gifts and foundations, are ' like sacrifices without 
salt.'" 

" Like the market, where many times if you can stay a little, 
the price will fall." 

" Like common distilled waters, flashy things," 

" Like precious odours, most fragrant when they are incensed 
or crushed." 

" Like an ill mower, that mows on still, but never whets his 
scythe." 

" Virtue is like a rich stone, best plain set." 

These are good for every-day wear. Not one of them has, or 
admits of that characteristic which makes the simile so attractive 
to an accomplished elocutionist. But they all have the feature 
which I before mentioned, of an explanatory appendage. How 
practical the character of the invention that calls them forth ! 
and how completely stamped, like the others, with the indivi- 
duality of the author, and indicative of a handiwork utterly 
incapable of claiming the signet furnished by the examples 
above. 

It would be as easy to suppose by these evidences. Bacon and 
Shelley to have been one and the same author, as that these 
several specimens of Shakespeare and of Bacon could proceed 
from one and the same mind. 

But so unlike is Bacon psychologically in his avowed works to 
Shakespeare, that he afibrds almost no opportunity to institute 
comparisons. Where we would advance the characteristic em- 
bodiments of human passion and emotion emanating from Shake- 



436 Shakespeare^ from ait American Point of View. 

speare^ we turn to Bacon to find notliing" but a negative. No 
examples wlaatever with which, to compare those individual 
flashes of fire and soul, by which Shakespeare appears as the 
master of the human heart. To speak in elocutionary terms^ 
where can we find in Bacon passages admitting of guttural vibra- 
tion embodying the sentiments of scorn_, pride, spleen, and aver- 
sion, such as may be found in " Coriolanus,^^ and in '' Timon of 
Athens " ? Where any such opportunities of abrupt utterance 
bearing like lightning flashes the vocal symbol of anger such as 
Shakespeare presents frequently enough, but more particularly 
in "■ Richard II.," in the character of Margaret of Anjou, in 
'^ Richard III." and in ^^ King Lear '' ? Where the possibilities 
of the aspirate, in its several features of heartfelt earnestness 
growing out of a variety of emotions ? Where the expression of 
sarcasm and irony, as it attaches to Constance, in the midst of her 
maternal grief? To Faulconbridge with his humorous sallies? 
To Margaret of Anjou in her panther-like rage? We might as 
reasonably demand the same throughout nearly the whole scale 
of the passions. Indeed, within the whole of this range of mental 
forces we can turn all the angles of reflection to view, and ex- 
hibit the many colours of this psychological polygon, as of Shake- 
spearean identity ; but against all these in Bacon we find nothing 
but a plain surface. And (supposing him capable of the Shake- 
spearean dramas) the evidence that when Bacon wrote as Bacon, 
he was certainly able to send all these mighty energies to sleep, 
and to float somewhat as a flat-bottomed boat over a smooth 
lake j although according to the upholders of the theory which we 
are called upon to refute, when he undertook to write the tasks 
of Shakespeare he became a new man, all his scholarly decorum 
he dashed aside, his usual mathematical sentences (1 a and 2 ^, 2 « ^ 
and 4 h) were never allowed to occur. No longer spake he as if 
he said, " I am Sir Oracle." And getting completely out of his 
flat boat, his rugged way is now on the highest crests^ and in the 
deepest valleys of the angry ocean. 



The Ettphonic Test^ 437 



CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

THE EUPHONIC TEST (CONTINUED). 

In this chapter will be found tlie conclusion of the analysis by 
Professor Taverner, accompanied by the opinions to which the 
examination brings him. His views are of great force, and there 
is one point in particular, in which the Professor is exceedingly 
strong, and which it will be perceived also is entirely new. He 
calls attention to the fact that, while the text of Shakespeare is 
so full of trite legal expressions, as to induce even an English 
Lord Chief Justice to make an argument that he had been bred a 
lawyer, or was, at least, an articled attorney's clerk. Lord Bacon, 
who, it is known, was thoroughly a lawyer, very rarely allows 
himself to be betrayed into a legal phrase. The only one in- 
stance of any importance (says the Professor) which appears in 
Bacon's voluminous text, in his use of the word caveat — a word 
which does not appear in Shakespeare at all. And this omission 
the Professor infers, will be all the more surprising if the author 
of the writings of Bacon and Shakespeare were one and the same 
man, since the word caveat, meaning simply a warning, would 
have come naturally to the writer's mind in many of the 
exigencies of his dramatic scenes. I will add also that the word 
caveat is so full of musical balance and tone, that Shakespeare 
would have been likely to have used it often, had he been as 
legally familiar with it as was Bacon. But I think that 
Professor Taverner, though quite correct in saying Shakespeare 
never used the word caveat in any of his recognized produc- 
tions, has overlooked the fact that our poet has presented it, in 
the slightly-altered form of caveto, in the mouth of ancient Pistol. 
In Henry V., Act II. Scene 3, when that worthy person is 
about going off with Nym and Bardolph to the wars in France, 

he conjures Dame Quickly,, whom he has made his wife to 
29 - 



43 8 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

heware how she allows irresponsible persons to run up tavern 
scores : — 

Pistol. My love, give me thy lips. 

Look to my chattels and my moveables ; 
Let senses rule : the word is " Pitch and Pay, Trust none ; " 
For oaths are straws, men's faiths are wafer cakes, 
And hold-fast is the only dog, my duck ; 
Therefore caveto be thy counsellor. 

There can hardly be a doubt that this term caveto is PistoFs 
bombastic version of the plain word caveat, or caution. 

That portion of the Professor''s treatise which is surmounted 
with the inter-heading of " Mental Differences of the Two Men 
mathematically demonstrated/^ is also specially worthy of. con- 
sideration. The parallelisms between Shakespeare and Lyly, in 
this connexion, are likewise very curious. The Professor 
resumes his task as follows : — 

RETEOGUESSION. 

Much that is submitted in this chapter it was intended 
should have appeared in the earlier part of my last communication ; 
it follows that some portion of that also was intended as a 
sequence to this. Under these circumstances, the reader may 
chance discover some appearance of repetition, as well as the un- 
avoidable retrogression in the argument. This, it is hoped will 
be overlooked. I was certainly compelled to wait until the 
passages which I had selected from Bacon for special interroga- 
tion were kind enough to reveal to me something of their 
idiosyncrasies, and the time that has been afforded me for 
further scrutiny has elicited some features of importance, which 
I was unable to perceive before 

THE LAW OF KHYTHM. 

This investigation has been fraught with difficulty, in conse- 
quence of its being necessary to seek for manifestation of laws of 
rhythm in prose composition, where it has been very truly said 
that '^ its range is so wide that we can never anticipate its flow/^ 
For what is rhythm ? It is but that law of succession which is 
the regulating principle of every whole, that is made up of pro- 
portional parts ; it is present in the dance, when we consider it 



The Etiphonic Test. 439 

as applied to things of motion ; its intervals are to be detected in 
sculpture and architecture, in our furniture and ornaments, where 
we see it extended to things of matter ; but, when we consider it 
in its relation to sound, it is potent in the highest degree in 
music and in poetry, and the manipulation of it by Shakespeare 
in his blank verse is definite in the extreme, and the laws of 
rhythm there maintained are so perfect and reliable as to become 
from time to time an index to his meaning where our keenest 
discriminations are liable to be misled, and would otherwise fail. 
For all verse may be defined as a succession of articulate sounds, 
" regulated by a rhythm so definite, that we can readily foresee 
the results which follow/-' That is, that the recurrence of the 
accents at such points have that degree of regularity, that we 
anticipate the return of the accent, but in prose we are not able so to 
anticipate its recurrence, while the pleasure we derive from verse 
is founded on this very anticipation. It may be seen, then, the 
difficulty that has been here encountered, and what immense 
difference and advantage it would have been, had we had instead, 
to judge of blank verse on both sides. 

DIVERSE MUSICAL EAR. OP SHAKESPEARE AND BACON. 

Shakespeare and Bacon looked upon the same events, read 
the same authors, their minds were brought very much under 
the same popular influence, yet their writings do not indicate any 
such resemblance as even these considerations would justify, 
much less any approach to that identity in thought, word, 
phrase, melody, and psychological bias which would be more than 
possible, if the Baconian theory were true. But on the contrary, 
as we shall see, these writings contain most unquestionable marks 
of being derived from natures totally diverse, dictated by a very 
opposite life purpose, and moulded and expressed by a distinct 
m.usical sense or ear. Moreover, it could be shown, if so exten- 
sive and nice an investigation were desirable, and I were not 
restricted in the direction of my thoughts, that among the words 
employed by Bacon, not merely technical, but literary words, are 
many that do not appear in Shakespeare, and that innumerable 
Shakespearian words Bacon fails to use. A single yet note- 
worthy instance occurs on the first page of Bacon^s Works. 
Among the arguments used on the side of the Bacon theory, 
that Shakespeare had legal training and culture, one is that he so 



440 Shakespeare^ from an American Point of View, 

often illustrates a thought by an appropriate legal term. How 
is it then that Bacon, being a lawyer, so very seldom himself 
uses a legal phrase by way of illustration ? 

A PECULIAR PROOF OP LEGAL DIPFEEENCE. 

And in this one rare instance that I remember, which occurs 
on his first page, he uses the term a " caveat" and it is some- 
what to the point to say that that term, so ready to spring from 
the mind of Bacon, is not found in Shakespeare. And, more- 
over, what is its definition ? a caution, a warning — pretty wide 
scope for its use. How many hundreds of times in all the cross 
purposes of the drama would opportunity and need for this 
expression arise, but never by any chance is it mentioned by 
Shakespeare as a " caveat." Surely, to judge Shakespeare as 
learned in the law, because of his use of ordinary legal phrases, 
might have the shadow of a reason if the doctor and the lawyer 
had not, in all times, furnished society with an apt quotation to 
be employed with zest by everybody except themselves. Let 
me repeat, then, that as far as this article is concerned, it is in- 
tended chiefly to prove that the Shakespeare dramas cannot be 
said to exhibit any of the peculiar analogies, the phrase construc- 
tions, the prose melodies, and other external features, which 
remain to be set forth as Baconianisms ; nor, on the other hand 
can Bacon's works show any reproduction of the style and form 
of metaphor and simile common to Shakespeare, nor any repeti- 
tion of those more subtle forms of melody and cadence, which 
proceed from the dictates of the musical sense, and are cha- 
racteristic of the prose passages of the plays. 

MENTAL DIFFERENCE MATHEMATICALLY DEMONSTRATED. 

Besides thus comparing these authors with themselves, it will 
be somewhat parallel, and a step further in confirmation of their 
non-identity to compare each of them with another, where one 
is found to agree and the other to disagree. This is to follow a 
good axiom in mathematics, that where one is like, and the other 
unlike to a third, they must be unlike to each other. I refer to 
the writings of Lyly. Whether it is to be considered that 
Shakespeare so often imitated these writings because of his 
admiration and appreciation of their merits ; or whether it was 



The EtLphonic Test. 441 

as some have held, in sarcastic derision of some false conceit or 
pompous expression ; or because of his readiness to take advan- 
tage of any popular excitement, which has been pointed out, 
for this reason he gave to the public on every new occasion 
scraps from writings so popular with distinguished patrons of 
the drama, as is recorded to be in the mouth of every lady 
at court;— it matters not, the fact remains that these resem- 
blances or parodies extensively exist, and are to be found in 
so many of the plays, both tragedies and comedies; whilst 
the writings of Bacon are not in any way affected from the 
same source.' The collated passages, highly interesting of 
themselves, from which I shall quote but a few examples, are 
taken from an admirable and most concise publication by Wm. 
Lowes Eushton. ["Shakespeare's Euphuisms,'' Longman, 
Green, and Co., London, 1871.] 

"The Euphues of Lyly was published before Shakespeare 
began to write for the stage. It is said that ' all the ladies of 
the time were Lyly's scholars, she who spoke not euphuism 
being as little regarded at court as if she could not speak French,' 
and that ' his invention was so curiously strung that Elizabeth's 
court held his notes in admiration.' " 

PARALLELISMS OF SHAKESPEAEE AND LYLY. 

Shakespeare and Lyly use often the same phrases, the same 
thoughts, and play upon the same words. 

It is evident that Shakespeare was very familiar with this 
book, wherein I see the origin of many of the famous passages in 
his works. No line of Shakespeare's has been so much ques- 
tioned and curiously regarded as this one in " As You Like It : " 

Whicli, like the toad, ugly and venomous. 
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head. 



1 John Lyly, or Lilly, born 1553, died 1600, M.A. of Oxford, a court wit 
and poet. "His elaborate, fanciful, and dainty style became the model of 
court conversation ;" it is parodied in Sir Pierce Shafton's speeches in " The 
Monastery," and in " Love's Labour's Lost " in "Don Armado." He wrote 
plays and songs : was parodied in Marston's " What You Will," and Jonson's 
" Cynthia's Eevels." He founded a new English style, marked by fantastic 
similes and illustrations, formed by attributing fanciful and fabulous pro- 
perties to animals, vegetables, and minerals.— -Fwc^e^opec^m. 



442 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

The passage bearing a similiar reference^ in Lyly^ reads 
thus : — 

" That the fayrer the stone is in the Toade^s head, the more 
pestilent the poyson is in her bowelles ; that talk the more it is 
seasoned with fine phrases, the lesse it savoreth of true mean- 
ing/' 

JFar from her nest the lapwing cries away, 

says Shakespeare {Comedy of Urrors, Act IT. Scene 2). 

" Lapwing . . flyeth with a false cry farre from their nests, 
making those that look for them seek where they are not/' were 
the words of Lyly. 

Two may keep coimsaile i£ one be away, 

is the smooth and almost bird-like utterances of Lyly's prose, 
from which Shakespeare makes a blank verse line, with scarce an 
alteration : — 

Two may keep counsel, putting one away. 

But the saying is true, " The empty vessel makes the greatest sound." 

JELenry V., Act IV. Scene 4. 

Where did Shakespeare find the saying ? — 

The empty vessell giveth a greater sound than the full barrel). 

Bene. Why, i' faith, methinks she's too low for a high praise, too brown 
for a fair praise, and too little for a great praise : only this commendation I 
can afford her, that were she other than she is, she were unhandsome ; and 
being no other but as she is, I do not like her. — 'Much Ado about Nothing, 
Act I. Scene 1. 

I know not how I should commend your beauty, because it is somewhat 
too brown ; nor your stature, being somewhat too low, etc. 

The advice of Euphues to Philautus is probably the origin of 
the advice of Polonius to Laertes. 

And these few precepts in thy memory see thou character. 

And to thee, Philautus, .... if these few prec'gpts I give thee be 
observed. 

Some parts only of the following passages are placed close 
together, so the resemblance between these few jprecepts may be 
more easily seen : — 

Polonius. Give thy thoughts no tongue. 
Euphues. Be not lavish of thy tongue. 



The Eitphonic Test. 443 

PoLONiFS. Do not dull thy palm with entertainment of each new-hatch 'd 
unfledged comrade. 

EuPHUES. Every one that shaketh thee by the hand is not joined to thee 
in heart. 

PoLONitrs. Beware of entrance to a quarrel. 

EuPHUES. Be not quarrellous for every light occasion. Beware, etc. 

PoLONius. Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice. 

EuPHUES. It shall be there better to hear what they say, than to speak 
what thou think est. 

There is mucli further resemblance to the advice of Polonius in 
other parts of Euphues : — 

PoLONixJS. Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, but not expressed in 
fancy. 

EuPHTJES. Let your attire be comely, but not costly. 

If Bacon had had to write Polonius' advice to his son, v^e may- 
learn of what character it would be by consulting* Bacon^s three 
essays " Of Travel/' " Of Cunning-/^ and " Of Neg-otiating/' 
These three essays of themselves, carefully studied, would fully 
convince that their author could never have produced Polonius' 
advice to his son. I do not, however, intend to pursue that line 
of argument, but to peer at once, if I can, into the rhythm of 
Bacon's sentences, and advance to something that can be 
measured and counted. In his essay, " Of Travel," he has this 
passage : — 

" The things to be seen and observed are : the coui-ts of 
princes, especially when they give audience to ambassadors ; the 
courts of justice while they sit and hear causes : and so of con- 
sistories ecclesiastic; the churches and monasteries, with the 
monuments which are therein extant ; the walls and fortifications 
of cities and towns, and so the havens and harbours ; antiquities 
and ruins; libraries, colleges, disputations, and lectures where 
any are ; shipping and navies ; houses and gardens of state and 
pleasure, near great cities ; armouries, arsenals, magazines, ex- 
changes, burses, warehouses, exercises of horsemanship, fencing, 
training of soldiers, and the Ulce." 

Shakespeare's superior musical expression. 

Bacon's arena here, as elsewhere in all similar instances, 
embraces merely the municipality, or, at most, the nation ; 
Shakespeare's is invariably the world. With Bacon it is society 



444 Shakespeare^ from an American Point of View. 

— not mankind — but tlie influential classes, and the things 
which they create of wealth and power ; with Shakespeare it is 
nature, and all those things of life and energy that spring from 
her teeming breast. With regard to the above extract, the 
musical ear of Shakespeare and Bacon may be therein shown to 
differ in two particulars : Firstly, that when Shakespeare has 
occasion to present any such series of particulars, he will not be 
found to continue a succession of couplets thus : " churches and 
monasteries,^' ^' walls and fortifications,'"' of " cities and towns," 
and so the " havens and harbours/' '^ antiquities and ruins,'^ 
" shipping and navies -'^ nor, secondly, will he ever, except some- ' 
times for a comic effect, bring up suddenly at the close of any 
such series with a jerk, like unto the above passage from Bacon 
ending with " and the like." But such terminations are by no 
means of rare occurrence with Bacon. They are innumerable. 
And among those ending with the same phrase we meet 
with : — 

" — dreams, divinations, and the like.'' " — orators, painful 
divines, and the like.''' " — sometimes upon colleagues, associ- 
ates, and the like." " — lions, bears, camels, and the like." 
" — vain opinions, flattering hopes, false valuations, imaginations 
as one would, and the like." 

'' Sometimes purging ill-humours, sometimes opening the 
obstructions, sometimes helping the digestions, sometimes in- 
creasing appetite, sometimes healing wounds, ulcerations thereof, 
and the like." 

So, also, in further illustration of this " chippy " ending, take 
the following passage : — 

" For, as the astronomers do well observe, that when three of 
the superior lights do meet in conjunction, it bringeth forth 
some admirable effects." Really ! It bringeth forth admirable 
effects ! 

Obvious as it appears to me, it would perhaps amount to little 
in argument, to urge that it would be impossible for Shake- 
speare to have written the above passage. But we will proceed 
to examine how the musical faculty of Shakespeare is governed 
in bringing to a close any similar succession of particulars. His 
invariable method is so to construct the terminational words — 
and the same would be true in the event of any climax — as to 



The EupJionic Test. 445 

afford tlie opportunity of what is known in elocution as harmonic 
or climateric couplets, which imparts something of a triumphant 
flourish at the end. So uniform is this, that it matters not 
where in Shakespeare we take our illustration. Whether it be 
Brutus' speech to the Romans, or Marc Antony's oration, or any of 
Henry the Fifth's speeches to his soldiers, or his address to Lord 
Scroop, the result would be, in all instances, the same. We will 
choose an illustration of no more elevated a style than Biondello's 
descriptions of Petruchio and Grumio. In the first description, 
that of Petruchio, the last item, is '' a woman's crupper ofvelme,'' 
which has this sort of pendant for a finish : — 

"Whicli hatli two letters for her name, fairly set down in studs, and Ivre 
and there pieced with pack-thread. 

Now this is the flourish of which I spoke, but for comic effect, 
as I was indicating it is permitted to end as a sort oi failure, 
with the objectionable jerk on pach-thread, which brings in the 
laugh, as every one will" readily understand, who are any way 
conversant with the tricks of low comedians. In the other, 
instance, the description of Grumio is finished off for a like effect, 
with this addendum : — 

A monster, a very monstee in apparel, and not like a Christian footboy 
or gentleman's lackey. 

In this he, the actor, is allowed to come off with the appearance 
of more triumphant success : — 

BiON. Why Petruchio is coming, in a new hat, and an old jerkin ; a pair 
ofold breeches, thrice turned; a pair of boots that have been candle-cases, 
one buckled, another laced ; an old rusty sword ta'en out of the town armoury, 
with a broken hilt, and chapeless ; with two broken points : his horse heaped 
with an old mothy saddle, and stirrups of no kindred : besides, possessed with 
the glanders, and like to mose in the chine ; troubled with the lampass, in- 
fected with the fashions, full of wind-galls, sped with spavins, rayed with the 
yellows, past cure of the fives, stark spoiled with the staggers, begnawn with 
the hots ; swayed in the back, and shoulder-shotten ; ne'er-legged before, 
and with a half -cheeked bit, and a head-stall of sheep's-leather ; which, being 
restrained to keep him from stumbling, hath been often burst, and now 
repaired with knots ; one girth six times pierced, and a woman's crupper of 
velure, which hath two letters for her name fairly set down in studs, and here 
and there pieced with pack-thread. 
Bap. Who comes with him ? 
BiON. 0, sir ! his lackey, for all the world caparisoned like the horse ; 



44^ Shakespeare, from an American Point of VieiiK 

witli a linen stock on one leg, and a kersey boot-hose on tlie other, gartered 
with a red and blue list ; an old hat, and ' the amours or forty fancies ' pricked 
in't for a feather : a monster, a very monster in apparel, and not like a 
Christian foot-boy, or a gentleman's lackey. 

Bacon^s ear does not lead him to seek any such free, indepen- 
dent, and exultant expression of enthusiasm of which this is some- 
what indicative. 

When the subject is of a more serious and elevated character 
this form of delivery centres in the cadence with force, grace, 
and dignity combined, producing the noblest effects known to 
the stage. 

The following, from Shakespeare, include nothing more than 
the cadences attending the climaxes and endings of the speeches 
from which they are taken. The effect, I think, will be felt by 
most people, especially those who have been attendants at the 
theatre. Nothing can be farther from Shakespeare than such 
terminations with which these culminating passages are con- 
trasted : — 

Do break the clouds || as did the wives of Jewry 

At Herod's bloody hunting slaughter-men. Senry V. 

Cey — God for Harry, England, and Saint George ! Menry V. ■ 

If that same demon, that hath guU'd thee thus, 

Should, with his lion gait, walk the whole world, 

He might return to vasty Tartar back 

And tell the legions || — I can never win 

A soul so easy as that Englishman's, Henry Y. 

Arrest them to the answer of the law ; — 

And God acquit them of their practices. Henry V. 

Look you here, 
Here is himself, marr'd as you see, with traitors. 

Julius CcBsar. 
And put a tongue 
In every wound of Csesar, that should move 
The stones of Eome | to rise and mutiny. Julius Ccesar. 

Shall in these confines, with a monarch's voice, 

Cry Havoc \ and let loose the dogs of war ; 

That this foul deed shall smell above the earth 

With carrion men groaning for burial. Julius Ccesar. 

I'd make a quarry 
With thousands of these quarter 'd slaves, as high || 
As I could pick my lance. Coriolanus. 



The Etiphonic Test. 447 

This grace and glow of termination is sometimes by Shake- 
speare aided by a rhyme : — 

Then brook abridgment ; and your eyes advance 

After your thought, straight back again to France. Henry V. 

And grant as Timon grows, | his hate may grow 

To the whole race || o£ mankind, high and low. Timon of Athens. 

We'U then to Calais ; and to England then ; | 

Where ne'er from France arrived more happy men. Henry Y. 

Then shall I swear to Kate, and you to me ; [ 

And may our oaths well kept and prosperous be. Henry V. 

You have now only to glance at the close of all or some of 
Bacon^'s essays^ and of his other works^ and the endings of his 
long paragraphs to be satisfied that he never^ from any sense of 
melody,, seeks at any time to produce any such cadences what- 
ever. And the absence of this mode of termination in Bacon^s 
writings indicates in him a very different musical sense or feel- 
ing from that of Shakespeare. As further confirmation of Bacon's 
habitual omission in this respect when any such opportunity 
would occur, I shall trespass on the patience of your readers to 
give one or two very short extracts ; and I shall then endeavour 
to present other positive peculiarities of Bacon. 

Thus, in his fine essay on Superstition he says, — 

" The causes of superstition are, pleasing and sensual -rites and 
ceremonies; excess of outward and pharisaical holiness; over 
great reverence of traditions, which cannot but load the church ; 
the stratagems of prelates for their own ambition and lucre; the 
favouring too much of good intentions, which openeth the gate 
to conceits and novelties ; the taking an aim at divine matters 
by human, which cannot but breed mixture of imaginations ; 
and, lastly, barbarous times, especially joined with calamities 
and disasters.''^ 

Again, in his remarkable essay on Travel, he remarks, — 

" As for triumphs, masks, feasts, weddings, funerals, capital 
executions, and such shows, men need not to be put in mind of 
them; yet are they not to be neglected. If you will have a 
young man to put his travel into a little room and in short time 
to gather much, this you must do : first, as was said, he must 
have some entrance into the language before he goeth ; then he 
must have such a servant, or tutor as knoweth the country, as 



448 Shakespeare from an American Pomt of View, 

was likewise said; let him cany with him also some card, or 
book, describing the country when he travelleth, which will be 
a good key to his inquiry ; let him keep his diary ; let him not 
stay long in one city or town, more or less as the place deserveth, 
but not long ; nay, when he stayeth in one city or town, let 
him change his lodgings from one end and part of the town to 
another, which is a great adamant of acquaintance ; let him 
sequester himself from the company of his countrymen, and diet 
in such places where there is good company of the nation where 
he travelleth ; let him, upon his removes from one place to 
another, procure recommendation to some person of quality 
residing in the place whither he removeth, that he may use his 
favour in those things he desireth to see or know; thus he may 
abridge his travel with much profits/' 

I shall now proceed to furnish positive examples, to prove that 
the musical guidance of the ear of Bacon tends, whenever he 
speaks sententiously, and the language admits of it, to equally 
balance his sentences, and the clauses which they contain, one 
against the other, either regularly, or alternately, by giving to 
them the same number of syllables, and also by some other 
expedients. When the first member of a sentence, composed of 
four clauses, is short, and the following long, the corresponding 
clauses which follow,, receive the same adjustment. For ex- 
ample : — 

" Read not to contradict and confute, [ Nor, to believe and 
take for granted; | Nor, to find talk and discourse, | But to 
weigh and consider.^'' 

The first two clauses are each of nine syllables ; the latter two 
clauses are each of seven. 

"These men mark .when they hit, | but never when they 
miss.''"' 

In each of these clauses there are the same number of syl- 
lables. 

'^ He that hath the best of these intentions | is an honest 
man ; [ and that prince that can discern of these intentions, [ is 
a very wise prince." 

Here the clauses are ten syllables and five : twelve syllables 
and six. 



The Euphonic Test. 449 

" He that seeketh to be eminent good, amongst aWe men, 
liatli a great task, | but that is ever good for the public ; | but 
he that plotteth to be the only figure amongst cyphers, | is the 
decay of the whole age/^ 

Here the syllables are twenty to ten, and sixteen to eight. 

" They do best who if they cannot but admit love, ] yet make 
it keep quarter ; | and sever it wholly from their serious aifairs, | 
and actions of life.-" 

This passage presents an alteration, i. e. twelve syllables and 
sixj and then again, twelve syllables and six. The word 
" action " being pronounced as three syllables, as it was then. 

Is not this definite of the kind of melody of speech that 
belongs to Bacon ? How exact the ear ! It counts its seconds 
like the pendulum of a clock. 

"The virtue of prosperity is temperance, | the virtue of 
adversity is fortitude.''^ 

" Prosperity is the brains | of the Old Testament, | adversity 
is the brains \ of the New.''' 

This gives the repetition of seven syllables, and the propor- 
tion of six and three. 

" It is better to have no opinion of God at all, ] than such an 
opinion as is unworthy of Him; ] for the one is unbelief, the 
other is contumely .'' 

Here we have an example of three groups, each of fourteen 
syllables. 

Like unto like, more than similarity, is the guiding law of 
Bacon's ear; when therefore we can reflect a likeness in the 
sentences in some other way, he is equally gratified. Thus, if I 
use the terms " light " and '' shadow " for expressions viewed 
with, or growing out of a favourable or unfavourable senti- 
ment in the mind (psychological bias), I can diagram the 
logical arrangement of the thought to which I allude, and this 
balancing of ideas instead of syllables, somewhat after the 
following manner : — 

First Form : — LigJit, — Shadoio ; contrasted shadow, contrasted 
light; or. 

Second Form : — Light}-^-Shadow; parallel light, parallel shadoio; 
or. 



450 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

Third Form : — Amelioration of shadow : augmentation of shadow ; 
arranged in the same order. 

These mental melodies, if I might so call them, are very ex- 
tensive in Bacon. An example or two from the Essay " Of Parents 
and Children '' will suggest my meaning : — 

" Children sweeten labours | but they make misfortunes more 
bitter. | They increase the care of life, | but they mitigate the 
remembrance of death." 

'^ The joys of parents are secret, | and so are their griefs and 
fears ; \ they cannot utter the one, | nor they will not utter the 
other.'' 

These are sufficient, perhaps, to suggest this additional Baco- 
nianism, and to enable the reader to recognize, in Bacon's works, 
the numerous occurrences of this class. Many such illustrations 
would be tedious. All the sentences of Bacon, that we have 
been scanning thus far, were composed of either two clauses, or 
of four, but the most remarkable peculiarity in Bacon, in this 
feature of the rhythmical adjustment of clauses, attaches to those 
sentences of his which are composed of triple clauses of equal 
dimensions, and which possess such regularity, which he never 
seeks to disturb, but rather aims to accomplish, as to bring a 
return unto the ear, much like unto the repetition of the multi- 
plication table in a village school. Let me give some illustra- 
tions of these, and I am sure you will admit that they are 
just as regular as " three times three are nine, three times four 
are twelve, and three times five are fifteen." 

" A man cannot speak to his son but as 2i father, to his wife 
but as a husband, to his enemy but upon terms." 

" Some books are to be tasted, others are to be swallowed, and 
some few to be chewed and digested" 

" Crafty men contemn studies, simple men admire them,/ and 
wise men use them.'' 

" Reading maketh a fill man, confidence a ready man, and 
writing an exact man." 

" Judges ought to be more learned than witty, more reverend 
than plausible, and more advised than confident." 

" The advantage ground to do good, the approach to kings and 
principal persons, and the raising of a man's own fortunes." 

But the equality of these triple clauses is not the only rhyth- 



The Euphonic Test. 45 1 

mlcal characteristic. Bacon's ear can stand a great deal more 
than that in the way of rigid and unbended rhythm. He avails 
himself, accordingly, of the place of the emphasis, and adheres 
to it with persistency. Therefore we find the emphasis regularly 
on the last word in the first and second examples, on the last 
but one in the third and fourth examples, on the last but two 
in the fifth example, and near the beginning (on the second word) 
in the sixth. 

It behoves us, now, to ascertain and show how Shakespeare 
acts when he is on the verge of making sentences like unto 
these. When he has advanced so far that you may say he has 
either to perform the like, or to avoid it. We know, beforehand, 
because we are too familiar with his rhythm to expect to find his 
text to more resemble the prim regularity of a French garden 
than the free, wild nature of a tangled forest. 

Shakespeare does not appear to object to four or more clauses 
of somewhat equal character and duration, but he does to three. 
We find that, in avoiding this jingle of triple clauses, which we 
saw attached to those which we have produced from Bacon, he 
either adds others, or he so enlarges and amplifies the third 
clause, that the efiect is the same ; e. g. : — 

Maeg. Nay, by'r lady, I am not sucli a fool to tliink what I list ; nor I 

list not to tliink what I can ; nor 

Much Ado about Nothing, Act III. Scene 4, 

Now, will not Shakespeare finish this sentence like unto Bacon ? 
Add but a few words, and the thing would be done ; but, no, 
indeed, this next clause is destined to break the regularity : — 

^Nay, by'r lady, I am not such a fool to think what I list ; nor I list 

not to think what I can ; nor, indeed, I cannot think, if I would think my 
heart out of thinking, that you are in love, or that you will be in love, or that 
you can be in love. 

The next example is from a speech of Benedick, " Much Ado 
about Nothing " (Act I. Scene 1) : — 

That a woman conceived me, I thank her ; that she brought me up, I like- 
wise give her most humble thanks ; but that I will have an escheat winded in 
my forehead, or hang my bugle in an invisible baldrick, all women shall 
pardon me. 

Cannot every one see the greater perfection of this over the 



452 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

other regularity ? But that matters not, we argue only for the 
distinction. 

Not to go beyond " Much ado About Nothing/' to hunt for 
examples, take the following passage (Act IV. Scene 1) : — 

Feiae. I have mark'd 

A tliousand blushing apparitions start 
Into her face ; a thousand innocent shames 
In angel whiteness bear away those blushes ; 
And in her eye there hath appear'd a fire, 
To burn the errors, that these princes hold 
Against her maiden truth. 

How evident it is that another hand is here at work, and one 
that scrupulously avoids the characteristics of the Baconian sen- 
tences ! But a few lines further on, in the same scene, we find a 
passage suited to our purpose. In the following fiery speech of 
Leonato, the father of the slandered " Hero," observe the 
animated and stirring efiect of Shakespeare^s varied rhythm, 
produced in a way directly contrary to Bacon by a sudden 
change in the place of the emphasis : — 

Leon". If they speak but truth of her, 

These hands shall tear her ; if they wrong her honour, 

The proudest of them shall well hear of it : 

Time hath not yet so dried this blood of mine. 

Nor age so eat up my invention, 

Nor fortune made such havoc of my means. 

Nor my bad life reft me so much of friends. 

But they shall find, awaked in such a kind. 

Both strength of limb, and policy of mind, 

Ability in means, atid choice of friends. 

To quit me of them throughly. 

Not another line need be presented to establish the distinction 
between the music and melody of such passages as we have 
reviewed in Bacon and this which reigns in Shakespeare. 

Although I am supposed to be confined to narrower and more 
technical limits, to which I have sought to keej), it may not be 
considered improper of me, in closing these remarks, to advert, 
in the briefest manner, to a single feature of individuality which 
we think paramount in our poet. 



The Euphonic Test. 453 



SUPEUIOE BREADTH OF HIS NATURE. 

What, then, of that wide and wonderful sympathy with human 
nature, which he must have had, and hy which alone he could so 
have depicted the wide tide of passions, and the innermost emo- 
tions of both man and woman, all of which he must have been 
able so keenly to feel? And where, in Bacon, do we find the 
evidence of the possessions of such sympathy ? To listen to these 
secret throbs of human emotion in any great degree, we should 
need to travel over his whole continent. But as here, the com- 
parison on our side is as ''all the world to nothing,'^^ I may well 
rest content by simply helping the reader, out of his own abun- 
dance of recollections, to recall one or two as they come to my own 
mind. Go with me, then, to look upon Lear, " as mad as the 
vexed sea," and, in the midst of thunders and lightnings, address- 
ing first these awful forces of nature, and then, from them, the 
equally awful iniquities of the world : — 

Blow, wind, and crack your cheeks ! rage ! blow ! 
You cataracts, and hurricanes, spout. 
You sulphurous and thought-executing fires, 
Vaunt couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts. 

And thou all shaking thunder 
Strike flat the thick rotundity o' the world ! 

Let the great gods 
That keep this dreadful pother o'er our heads 
Find out their enemies now. 

Tremble, thou wretch, 
That hast within thee undivulged crimes, 
Unwhipp'd of justice. 

Hide thee, thou bloody hand ; 
Thou perjured, and thou simular man of virtue 
That art incestuous : Caitiff, to pieces shake. 
That under cover and convenient seeming 
Hast practised on man's life ! Close pent-up guilts. 
Rive your concealing continents and cry, 
These dreadful summoners grace. 

' Look upon Coriolanus like a mad and wounded lion, and with 
his heart " made too great for what contains it,'' — 

Cut me to pieces, Volsces ; men and lads. 
Stain all your edges on me.— Boy ! False hound ! 
30 



454 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View, 

If you have writ your annals true, 'tis these, 
That, like an eagle in a dove-cote, I 
Plutter'd your Volscians in Corioli, 

Step stealthily^ lighted by the moon^ to the presence of Juliet^s 
body in the tomb, place yourself in the darkness, and there hear 
Romeo with a broken heart murmur to himself, — 

0, here 
Will I set up my everlasting rest ; 
And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars 
From this world-wearied flesh. 

And, after an ominous silence, as with one swoop, he seeks the 
silent shore with his desperate and life-destroying agent : — 

Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on 
The dashing rocks thy sea-sick, weary hark ! 

Recall, in like manner, the other tragic characters of this poet 
in the hours of their greatest anguish, and tell me if these are not 
individual experiences of which Bacon gives no possible indica- 
tion. But this is superfluous, because, as I have said, there is 
nothing in the Baconian treasury with which to compare these 
crises of emotion ; they belong to the one structure of all others 
in the world, but one so conspicuous, that it stands high above 
all that genius has raised on the face of the earth, so towering 
and wide that the pyramids of Egypt cannot hide it ; more com- 
plex, and infinitely richer in its art contents than that of St. 
Peter^s at Rome — stands this treasure-house, over whose gates is 
nscribed the one name, 

SHAKESPEARE. 



Recapitulation and Conclusion. 455 



CHAPTER XXXIX. 

EECAPITULATION AND CONCLUSION. 

With the euphonic or rhetorical test, as applied respectively to 
the verbal music and rhythmical modes of expression of Shake- 
speare and Sir Francis Bacon, terminates the inquiry upon the 
question of dramatic authorship as between them ; and I think 
it will be conceded by every reader that I was fortunate in being 
able to entrust the elocutionary portion of the problem to Pro- 
fessor Taverner. Indeed, he has been so masterly in his analysis, 
and has brought to the treatment of the question confided to him, 
such an amount of philosophic insight and consideration, that no 
reinforcement of his argument is required at my hands. We 
perceive that the contrasts of literary style are, under the 
direction of the ear, as distinct and various as the inflections 
of the human voice, and through his examples it becomes apparent 
to any one who has crossed even the threshold of the euphonic 
mysteries, that it is as impossible for the comparatively cold ear 
of Lord Bacon to have been the author of the melodious plays of 
Shakespeare, as it would have been for Dante to have produced 
the verse of Petrarch, or for Carlyle to have written the sonnets 
of Tom Moore. Indisputably our poet was the great master of that 
school of prose melodists of which Gibbon, Addison, Doctor 
Johnson, Junius, Macaulay, and Newman are subordinate examples, 
while Bacon, on the other hand, may be said to lead the colder 
school, of which our readiest example is Carlyle. 

I have but to add, in closing this portion of my undertaking, 
that the euphonic or musical test was no part of my original 
purpose. But though it presented itself, incidentally, during the 
course of the Baconian analysis, I find no reason to regret the 
space it has required. To the multitude, its proofs may appear 
less potent than some others I have advanced, but with scholars 
and rhetorical experts the euphonic test will probably be more 
fatal to the Baconian theory than any other. 



45 6 Shakespeare, from an American Point of View. 

The relig-lous test also sprang incidentally from the dispute of 
authorship^ for it must be evident that a theological inquiry could 
have no importance in an examination which proceeded from an 
American point of view. It will he perceived, therefore, that I 
had no sectarian aim to serve, as some have charged while the 
foregoing chapters were in course of serial publication. The 
sectarian inquiry grew from the numerous evidences of a 
devotional Romanistie spirit in the Shakespearian text, and as 
these all ran one way, and breathed one sectarian tone, and, 
what was still more significant, as the writer of the plays 
frequently contrasted these Catholic solemnities with a vehement 
contempt for the reformed faith and for Protestants of every 
degree, it was impossible to leave the religious inquiry out of the 
discussion. I am not responsible for the proofs I have adduced, 
but I am free to say that I can conceive of no reason why Lord 
Bacon should have secretly slandered his much exhibited belief, 
nor how such a peculiarly practical nature as his, could have en- 
joyed such a pointless perfidy, under the cowardly mask of an 
alias. 

It has been said, by way of explaining the Bomanism of 
Shakespeare ^s writings, and of his custom of arraying his most 
estimable characters in the vestments of the Latin Church, that 
the plots of his plays are placed before his time, and that his 
persons must necessarily be of the Catholic faith ; but this does 
not explain our poet^s minute familiarity with the formula and 
doctrines of the Roman faith; since it is well known that no 
Catholic Services were permitted by law to be performed in 
England during Shakesp carets period ; nor does this suggestion 
quite account for the predilection exhibited by the writer of the 
plays to burlesque and scandalize Protestants and the Protestant 
faith. In the discussion of the Baconian theory, therefore, the 
religious point must be regarded as the domineering test; for 
unless it can be shown that Bacon was secretly a Catholic, the 
Shakespearian plays cannot possibly be attributed to him. 

The question as to the legal attainments of our poet, which 
has attracted great attention through the opinions of Lord Chief 
Justice Campbell, is only second in importance, on the point of 
authorship, to the sectarian inquiry. In dealing with this unex- 
pected difficulty, I found myself involved with the dangerous 
responsibility of often not agreeing with such high authority as 



Recapitulation and Conclusion. 457 

Lord Campbell, and even of expressing, now and then, very- 
different viev\^ 3 from those which the text had suggested to his lord- 
ship. And, in a general way, it seemed to me that his lordship, 
in replying to Mr. Payne Colly er^s inquiry, as to the extent of 
Shakespeare-'s legal attainments, with the view of testing the 
Baconian theory, took too narrow a gauge — when attempting to 
show that Shakespeare might have been an attorney, or an 
attorney's clerk — to measure the legal stature of Lord Bacon. 

We know that Bacon was not only master of the profoundest 
lore of his profession, but we always find him handling his facts 
in the broadest and most philosophical spirit ; while, on the 
other hand, the writer of the plays constantly violates all the 
congruities and philosophy of law, and exhibits such a legal 
deficiency in his moral adjustments of rewards and punishments, 
and, particularly, evinces such indifference to the instinctive 
logic of retaliation, that it is utterly unreasonable to attribute 
the authorship of these productions to a lawyer of any degree, 
much less to such a lawyer as Lord Bacon. 

The plays most conspicuous for these legal errors and de- 
ficiencies are, — The " Two Gentlemen of Verona,^' " The Comedy 
of Errors," " Measure for Measure,'' '' A Winter's Tale," and 
most notably " The Merchant of Venice." The examination of 
these productions, from the point of view I indicate, will doubt- 
less be as destructive of the Baconian fallacy, with lawyers, as the 
demonstrations of the euphonic test must be with rhetoricians. 

We may be told, at this stage, that such an extent of search 
and demonstration as I have devoted to these Baconian points 
is not necessary to dispose of a bubble which had never floated 
among the public with any amount of success ; and we may be 
flippantly assured that the inexorable reasoning faculty of Time 
alone, would, of itself, dispel the fallacy ; but such contemptuous 
treatment is not adequate to the destruction of a theory which 
has received the support of such minds as that of Lord Palmer- 
ston in England, and such scholars and critics as Judge Holmes 
and General Butler in America. Bubbles thus patronized must 
be entirely exploded, or they will be sure to reappear, whenever 
the world has a sick or idle hour, and delusions find their oppor- 
tunity to strike. Moreover, nothing is lost by our inquiries, after 
all, beyond a little time ; and I doubt not that all true admirers 
of our poet will agree, that one new ray of light which may thus 



458 Shakespeare^ from an American Point of View. 

be thrown upon the character and history of Shakespeare, will 
justify octavos of discussion. 

It was the Baconian pretension, at any rate, which gave the 
deciding- impulse to the undertaking of this work. My original 
intention had been to confine my labour to an examination of 
the plays, with the view solely of ascertaining the character of 
Shakespeare^s social and political sympathies from an American 
point of view, but it has been seen how this motive has been in- 
voluntarily extended, and how utterly absent it has been from 
any special design to undervalue Shakespeare^s acquirements, his 
morals, or his genius. It is by no means an agreeable task to 
expose the deformities of one^s favourite author, but all mere 
mortals must be held responsible for their errors, in the general 
interest of mankind, and the duty of exhibiting these errors is 
all the more incumbent, according to the authority of the author 
who commits them. The world must move on, and Shakespeare 
must face the ordeal of improved ideas, with all others ; and those 
who love him most, may solace themselves with the reflection, that 
there will be more renown left to him, even after his purgation, 
than to any other poet of the world. 

It undoubtedly gives many well-intentioned persons pain to 
have to tear and patch a favourite ideal, but, as I have already 
said, the general interests of mankind are superior to per- 
sonal considerations, and it is weak to resist any process that is 
required by reason. The blind idolaters of Dante, doubtless, 
protested in their time, against the frankness of the writers who 
showed him to be mean, crafty, and malignant; so, likewise, 
have admiring biographers of Bacon protested against the ex- 
posures which justified Pope in characterizing him as " The 
wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind;" but the just condemna- 
tion of moral defects do not prevent Dante from being worshipped 
to this day, as the greatest of the Italian poets, or deduct, in the 
least, from the renown of Bacon, as the greatest philosophical 
writer of any land or age. 

When, therefore, we find Shakespeare, despite the clearness of 
his observation and of his towering capacity, deliberately falsi- 
fying history in order to check the march of liberal ideas, as in his 
misrepresentation of the character and purposes of Jack Cade, or 
as in his patronage of despotism, murder, and incest, through his 
attractive and popular portrait of Henry VIII. ; when we hear him 



Recapitulation and Concltision. 459 

commending the massacre of thousands, in violation of solemn 
terms of truce, as in "Henry IV.," Part Second, and in the Second 
Part of "Henrj VI. /' when we listen to his inculcations of con- 
tempt for mechanics and mechanical pursuits, and note his un- 
bounded detestation for all the labouring- classes, as in " Corio- 
lanus,-'-' and, indeed, throughout his works, — we of this day feel 
bound to interpose our protest, and to question his right of respect 
for these opinions in either English or Amei'ican modern house- 
holds. 

It has been pleaded that the manners and morals of the age in 
which Shak?espeare lived, excuse not only his political illiberality, 
but palliate even the coarseness of his text ; but this defence be- 
comes of very little weight when we find the same age producing 
historians, who prided themselves on their veracity, even when it 
ran counter to the Court, and by writers whose chaste and 
decorous style commended their works to a large contemporaneous 
popularity. Of these latter. Lord Bacon was a bright example, 
while Hall and Hollinshed, the historians of the day, are a 
standing reproach to Shakespeare, since he followed their chronicles 
faithfully in all that enabled him to eulogize the nobles, but 
perverted them at once, whenever he had an oportunity to vilify 
the People. It is always a doubtful privilege for a writer to 
tamper with the rigours of history, even to aid a moral purpose, 
but nothing can palliate a deliberate untruth for the purposes of 
evil. 

It may be thought by some that I have been too diligent 
in searching for evidences of Shakespeare^s servility to rank, 
but the candid reader will do me the justice to observe that I 
have not offered every instance as an argument, and will also 
bear in mind that my engagement to give every expression 
tending to illustrate that point left me no discretion. I had 
constituted the reader as the judge, and accumulation even of 
trifles has a certain gravity in argument of which he had the 
right to weigh. Accumulations of an unvarying tendency form 
presumptions, and presumptions, though not conclusive, have a 
logical bearing on a case. 

Candid readers will likewise do me the justice to observe that, 
earnest as I have been in some of my condemnations of the 
Shakespeare text, I am far behind several of the most eminent 
English critics in their censure of our poet^s faults. Doctor 



460 Shakespeare, from an Ainerican Point of View. 

Johnson says, in his incomparable preface, that Shakespeare " has 
faults sufficient to obscure and overwhelm any other merit ;" that 
he sacrifices virtue to convenience, and is so much more care- 
ful to please than to instruct, that he seems to write without any 
moral purpose ; that he makes no just distribution of good and 
evil, nor is always careful to show, in the virtuous, a disapproba- 
tion of the wicked ; he carries his persons indifierently through 
right or wrong, and at the close dismisses them without further 
care, and leaves their examples to operate by chance. This 
fault the barbarity of his age cannot extenuate, for it is always 
a writer's duty to make the world better, and justice is a virtue 
independent of time or place."" In speaking of " Love's Labour's 
Lost," Doctor Johnson declares the play to be " filled with 
passages that are mean, childish, and vulgar, and some which 
ought not to have been exhibited, as we are told they were, 
before a maiden Queen." 

Ben Jonson, when told that Shakespeare had never blotted 
out a line, wished '^ that he had blotted out a thousand." 
Bagehot says, in his " Estimates of Some Englishmen and 
Scotchmen," that Shakespeare had two leading political ideas, — 
" First, the feeling of loyalty towards the ancient polity of his 
country, not because it was good, but because it existed. . . . The 
second peculiar tenet of his political creed is a disbelief in the 
middle classes. We fear he had no opinion of traders. . . . You 
will generally find that, when a citizen is mentioned, he is made 
to do or to say something absurd." 

Says Hazlitt, — " The whole dramatic moral of ^ Coriolanus ' 
is, that those who have little shall have less, and that those who 
have much shall take all that the others have left. The People 
are poor, therefore they ought to be starved. They work hard, 
therefore they ought to be treated like beasts of burden. They 
are ignorant, therefore they ought not to be allowed to feel that 
they want food, or clothing, or rest, or that they are enslaved, 
oppressed, or miserable." 

Gervinius, the master of the German Shakespearians, taking 
up this view of Hazlitt's, remarks that " Shakespeare had a 
leaning to the aristocratical principle, inasmuch as he does not 
dwell on the truths he tells of the nobles in the same proportion 
as he does on those he tells of the People." 

All of these censures are more than justified by the illustra- 



Recapitulation and Conclusion. 46 1 

tions I have given from the plays. Nevertheless_, I have not 
gone so far as Doctor Johnson, when he says that Shakespeare 
" has faults sufficient to ohscure and overwhelm any other merit," 
for at the end of this inquiry I find myself still of the opinion 
that his merits largely outweigh his faults, and adhere to the 
expression of my preface, that "his works are the richest 
inheritance of the intellectual world/' That he is, in short, 
the one man who, ahove all others, whether alive or dead, has 
contributed more happy hours to the civilized world, certainly to 
those in it who speak his language, than any other man who ever 
lived. 

In concluding my task, I have only to add that, if I have 
contributed any new light to a subject which has taxed so many 
patient intellects so long, I am sufiiciently well paid. 



462 Shakespeare^ from a7i Americaii Point of View. 



POSTSCRIPT. 

Just as I have brought my labours to a close, here comes to 
me a little volume contaming some evidence on. the subject of 
Shakespeare's personal history, which I deem worthy of being 
presented in connexion with Professor Taverner^s Analysis, It 
is entitled " Bacon versits Shakespeare : a Plea for the Defen- 
dant. By Thomas D. King, Montreal and Bouse^s Point, New 
York. Level Printing and Publishing Company, 1875.'''' The 
entire of Mr. King^s volume is ingenious, and exceedingly well 
written. He is a faithful believer in Shakespeare's having been 
the author of the plays attributed to him, and towards the close 
of his book presents some exceedingly carious observations 
respecting the evident Warwickshire origin of our poet, coinciding 
with our musical point.' Says Mr. King, — 

" Johnson, Iiimself born in a neighbouring county, first pointed out that 
the expression ' a mankind witch,' in ' The Winter's Tale ' (Act II. Scene 3) 
was a phrase in the Midland Counties for a violent woman. And Malone, 
too, showed that the singular expression in ' The Tempest' (Act I. Scene 2), 
' we cannot miss him,' was a provincialism of the same district. It is not 
asserted that certain phrases and expressions are to be found nowhere else but 
in Shakespeare and Warwickshire. But it is interesting to know that the 
Warwickshire girls still speak of their ' long purples ' and ' love in idleness ; ' 
and that the Warwickshire boys have not forgotten their ' deadmen's 
fingers ;' and that the ' nine men's morris ' is still played on the corn-bins of 
the Warwickshire farm stables, and still scored upon the greensward ; and 
that Queen Titania would not have now to complain, as she did in ' The 
Midsummer Night's Dream,' that it was choked up with mud ; and that 
' Master Slender ' w6uld find his shovel-board still marked on many a public- 
house table and window-sill ; and that he and ' Master Fenton,' and ' good 
Master Brook,' would, if now alive, hear themselves still so called. 

" Take now, for instance, the word. ' deck,' which is so common throughout 
the Midland Counties, but in Warwickshire is so often restricted to the 
sense of a hand of cards, and which gives a far better interpretation to 
Gloster's speech in the Third Part of ' King Henry VI.' (Act VI. Scene 1) : — 

Alas, that Warwick had no -inoxQ forecast. 
But whiles he thought to steal the single ten. 
The king was slyly finger'd from the deck ; 

1 Bacon was born in York House, London. York House stood on the site 
of the old Hungerford Market, close by the Charing Cross Eailway Station, 
and has an existing record in Inigo Jones's graceful water-gate, half- 
buried at the end of Northumberland Street. 



• Postscript. 463 

as, of course, there miglit be more kings than one in a pack, but not 
necessarily so in the hand. The word 'forecast,' too, both as verb and 
noun, is very common throughout both Warwickshire and the neighbouring 
counties. This word ' forecast ' is also used by Spenser, and others of 
Shakespeare's contemporaries ; and, though obsolete, except among the 
peasantry of the Midland districts, is stUl employed by the best American 
authors. 

" All the commentators here explain pugging-tooth as a thievish tooth, an 
explanation which certainly itself requires to be explained ; but most 
Warwickshire country-people could tell them that pugging-tooth was the 
same as pegging or peg-tooth, that is the canine or dog-tooth. ' The child 
has not its pegging-teeth yet,' old women still say. And thus all the 
difficulty as to the meaning is at once cleared. 

" But there is an expression used both by Shakespeare and his contem- 
poraries, which must not be so quickly passed over. Wherever there has 
been an unusual disturbance or ado, the lower orders round Stratford-on- 
Avon invariably characterize it by the phrase ' there has been old work to- 
day,' which well intei-prets the porter's allusion iu 'Macbeth,' (Act III. 
Scene 3), ' If a man were porter of hell-gate, he should have old turning the 
key,' which is simply explained in the notes as ' frequent,' but which mean's 
far more. So, in ' The Merchant of Venice ' (Act IV. Scene 2), Portia says, 
' We shall have old swearing ;' that is, very hard swearing. 

" A peculiar use of the verb ' quoth,' the Saxon preterite of to speak, is 
very noticeable among the lower orders in Warwickshire. Jerk, quoth the 
ploughshare ; that is, the ploughshare went jerk. 

" The expressive compound llood-holter' d, in ' Macbeth ' (Act IV. Scene 
1), which the critics have all thought meant blood-stained ; now bolter is 
peculiarly a Warwickshire word, signifying to clot, collect, or cake, as 
snow does in a horse's hoof, thus giving the phrase a far greater intensity of 
meaning. There is the word gull in ' Timon of Athens ' (Act II. Scene 1) : — 

But I do fear 
When every feather sticks in his own wing, 
Lord Timon will be left a naked gull, 
Which flashes now a phoenix ; 
which most of the critics have thought alluded to a sea-gull, whereas it means 
an unfledged nestling, which to this day is so called in Warwickshire. And 
this interpretation throws a light on a passage in the Eirst Part of ' King 
Henry VI.' (Act V. Scene 1) :— 

You used me so 
As that ungentle gull, the cuckoo's bird, 
TJseth the sparrow ; 
where some notes amusingly say that the word alludes to the voracity of 
the cuckoo. The Warwickshire farmers' wives, even now, call their young 
goslings gulls. 

" Contain yourself is a very common Warwickshire phrase for restrain 
yourself ; Timon says to his creditor's servant, ' contain yourself, good 
friend.' (' Timon of Athens,' Act II. Scene 2). In ' Troilus and Cressida' 
(Act V. Scene 2), Ulysses says, — 



464 Shakespeare, from an American Pomt of View. 

contain yourself, 
Your passion draws ears Mtlier. 

" In tlie ' Two Gentlemen o£ Verona ' (Act IV. Scene 4) we find Launce 
using tlie still rarer phrase of ' Tceep himself,' in tb e same sense to his dog 
Crab, when he says, ' ! 'tis a foul thing when a cur cannot Tceep {i.e. 
restrain) himself in all companies.' 

" From ' Sbakespereana Genealogica,' in the chapter headed ' Remarks on 
Names belonging to Warwickshire, alluded to in several plays,' the following 
excerpts are taken : — 

" Mr. Halliwell has shown that persons of the name of Ford, Page, Home, 
or Heme belonged to Stratford. In the records of the borough, published 
by that excellent writer, notices of receipts and payments are found as 
follows : — 

1597, R. of Thomas Fordes wiffe vi s. viij d. 

1585, Paid to Heme for iij dayes work, ij s. vj d. 

" The name of the melancholy Lord Jaques belongs to Warwickshire, 
where it is pronounced as one syllable : ' Thomas Jakes of Wonersh ' was 
one of the List of Gentry of the Shire, 12 Henry VI. 1433. At the surrender 
of the Abbey of Kenllworth, 26 Henry VIII. 1535, the Abbot was Simon 
Jakes, who had the large pension of £100 per annum granted to him. 
Monasticon, vol. vi. 

" A family by the name of Sly, rendered famous by their place in the 
Induction of the ' Taming of the Shrew,' resided at Stratford, and elsewhere 
in the county, in the Poet's time ; and he no doubt drew the portrait of the 
drunken tinker from the life. Stephen Sly was a labourer in the employ 
of William Combe, 13 Jac. I. 1616. (Page 330, Halliwell's " Stratford 
Records.") 

"In the serious business of 'The Taming of the Shrew,' one of Petruchio's 
servants is called ' Curtis ;' this was a Stratford name. Anne Curteys, 
widow, a knitter, was living there in 1607 : and John Curteys, a carpenter, 
is found there in 1615. In Petruchio's household twelve or thirteen of his 
men-servants are named, of whom one only, the ' ancient, trusty, pleasant 
Grumio,' belongs to Italy, all the rest are most thoroughly English : and as 
Philip, Nathaniel, Nicholas, Joseph, and Gabriel, are not uncommon names, 
we incline to believe that Shakespeare took them from his contemporaries 
Philip Henslowe, Nathaniel Field, Nicholas Tooley, Joseph Taylor, and 
probably Gabriel Harvey, a poet, the friend of Spenser. 

" Among the characters in the play of * Henry V.' are three soldiers 
whose Christian names are found in the folio of 1623, and, therefore, very 
properly retained in this edition, although usually omitted. ' John Bates, 
Alexander Court, and Michael Williams,' are private soldiers in King Henry's 
army." 

With this notice of Mr. King^s views^ the whole ease is with 
the court. 



INDEX. 



"All's Well that Ends Well," 
151 ; cliaracter of Helena, 155; in- 
delicacy of tlie scene with Parolles, 
156; Coleridge, Elze, and Mrs. 
Jameson on Helena, 155 — 157 ; 
religious points, ih. ; legal phrases, 
159. 

Ann Hathaway, Shakespeare's wife, 
24. 

"Antony and Cleopatra," instances 
of Shakespeare's use of the words 
" liberty " and " freedom," 360 ; 

• Cleopatra and Cressida, his only 
two completed female portraitures, 
361 ; legal evidences, 362. 

Arden (Mary), Shakespeare's mother, 
a Roman Catholic, 20. 

Aristocracy and Churchmen of 
England have an interest in deny- 
ing that Shakespeare was a Catho- 
lic, Q7. 

" As You Like It," its plot, 139 ; 
Adam, almost the only character 
in humble life that escapes our 
poet's contempt, 140 ; Catholic 
evidences, 142 ; licentious impro- 
priety of the language of Beatrice, 
143 ; law evidence, 144. 

Author's motives for writing this 
work, 1. 



B. 



Bacon (Lord), his parliamentary 
career, 14 ; may possibly have 
heard some unplayed MSS. . of 
Shakespeare read, 15 ; his mar- 
riage; his mercenary character. 



17; his committal to the Tower, 
and his death, ib. 

Bacon's (Delia) " Philosophy of 
Shakespeare's Plays Unfolded," 1 ; 
republished, 13. 

Baconian Theory (The), fii-st mooted 
by Delia Bacon, of Boston, 1 ; the 
theory supported by Lord Palmer- 
ston and General Butler, U.S., 
4 ; attracts the attention of the 
English Aristocracy, ib.; Miss 
Bacon's Essay republished in 
England ; supported by Mr. W. H. 
Smith, by a writer in Frasej's 
Magazine, and Professor Nathaniel 
Holmes of Harvard University, 
Cambridge, Mass., 13. See Holmes. 

Bagehot (Walter), 294, 460. 

Blackstone (Sir William), 165. 

Brutus (Marcus), Shakespeare's cha- 
racter of the Roman patriot in 
" Julius Csesar," 345 ; Brutus no 
sympathiser with the so-called 
common people, 347 ; the move- 
ment simply an aristocratic revolt, 
like that of the English Barons 
against King John, and not with 
a view to the liberty of the masses, 
ib. 

Butler, Gen., U.S., a supporter of the 
Baconian Theory, 1, 4, 457. 



C. 



Campbell's, Lord Chief Justice, 
opinion on the legal acquirements 
of Shakespeare, 74 ; first illustra- 
tion, 76 ; subsequent illustrations 
throughout his Plays adduced by 



466 



Index. 



Lord Campbell, 94, 102—106, 108, 
110, 134, 138, 144, 146, 149, 158, 
168, 170, 180, 197, 257—260, 286, 
312, 330, 344, 362, 393—396 ; the 
gravediggers' scene and the Case of 
" Hales V. Petit," 409—418 ; sig- 
nificant omissions of Lord Camp- 
bell, 395, 419. 

Chalmers, 37, 43, 74, 

Coleridge, 101, 155, 284, 319. 

Collier, Mr. Payne, on Shakespeare 
being an attorney's clerk, 76, 319. 

Comedies of Shakespeare, general 
review of, 173 ; nothing to favour 
the theory of his Protestantism, 
but rather his profound reverence 
for the Roman Catholic religion, 
ih,; improbability of Lord Bacon 
writing the low comic scenes of 
Shakespeare's Comedies, 172 ; Lord 
Macaulay on Shakespeare and 
Bacon, 174; Dr. Johnson on 
Shakespeare's Comedies, 175. 

" Comedy of Errors," 106 ; indif- 
ference of Shakespeare as to the 
origin of the plots of his plaj^s, 
ih.; Lord Campbell's further evi- 
dences of Shakespeare's knowledge 
of law ; legal improbability of Lord 
Bacon being the author, ih. ; 
graceful introduction of the Ab- 
bess, 109. 

Conrad (Judge), on the Rebellions of 
Wat Tyler and Jack Cade, 229— 
239. 

" Coriolanus," supposed date, 292 ; 
opinions of Knight, Hazlitt, Ger- 
vinius, Dowden, and Bagehot, 292, 
293 ; the haugbty patrician the 
favourite of the author, 294 ; the 
play notwithstanding a favourite 
witb American audiences, 294, 
309 ; copious extracts from the 
play, 295 — 310 ; Shakespeare's pic- 
ture of the plebeians in this play 
at variance with the instincts of 
his humble origin, 311 ; his legal 
acquirements, 312. 

Cranmer's christening speech in 
" Henry VIII.," regarded as an 
interpolation, 268. 

" Cymbeline," its probable date, 331 ; 
its plot, 332—336; instances of 
Shakespeare's worship of rank, 335 ; 
Dr. Johnson and Dr. Drake on 
this play, 337. 



D. 

Davenant, Sir William, and the tra- 
dition as to Shakespeare being his 
father, 30. 

Davies, Rev. Richard, 38. 

Davies, Thomas, 26. 

Dixon (Plepworth) does not adopt the 
Baconian Theory, 14, 17. ' 

Dowden's (Prof) "Shakespeare's Mind 
and Art," 46, 93, 150, 160, 242, 
262, 397. 

Drake (Dr.), 337. 

Dramatists of Shakespeare's day as 
Scholars, 16. 



E. 



Early Life of Shakespeare, 1 ; Shake- 
speare and the Bidford topers, 8 ; 
receives a gift from Lord South- 
ampton, 11 ; his birth, 18 ; his 
education, 19 ; his deer-stealing 
and Sir Thomas Lucy, 21 ; his 
learning, 22; his marriage and 
birth of his first child, 23. Extracts 
from his Plays possibly reflecting 
on his marriage, 24, 25 ; his de- 
parture for London, 27. 

Elze (Karl), 117, 156. 

Essex, Conspiracy of, 182 ; allusion 
to Essex's return from Ireland in 
" Henry V.", 207. 

Euphonic or Musical Test (The), 423 ; 
Professor Taverner's Essay on the 
Styles of Shakespeare and Bacon 
judged by the Laws of Elocution- 
ary Analysis and " Melody of 
Speech," 424; Similies from Shake- 
speare, 434; Retrogression, the 
Law of Rhj'thm, 438 ; Diverse 
Musical Ear of Shakespeare and 
Bacon, 439 ; a peculiar proof of 
Legal difference, 440 ; Mental dif- 
ference mathematically demon- 
strated, ih. ; Parallelisms of Shake- 
speare andLyly, 441; Shakespeare's 
superior Musical expression, 443 ; 
superior breadth of his nature, 
453. 

ETOning Mass — Did Shakespeare 
show ignorance of Catholic rites by 
his use of this term ? 46 — 50. 

F. 

Fraser's Mac/azine, article in sup- 
port of the Baconian Theory, 13. 



Index. 



467 



G. 



Gervinlus, 95, 101, 117, 325, 401, 
460. 

Grant White (Richard), 18, 41, 341. 

Greene and Nash, their envious at- 
tacks on Shakespeare, 1 9. 

Guizot (M.) on the play of " Othello," 
363. 

H. 

Hamlet," date of production, 397 ; 
Opinions of Hunter, Dowden, and 
Kenny, 397, 398 : Gervinius, Elze, 
and the Gei-man commentators, 
401 ; the Catholic tone and colour 
of Shakespeare's mind prevail 
throughout this play, 401—406; 
his adoration of royalty, 407 ; the 
gravediggers' scene, 409 ; the Case 
of Hales v. Petit, extract from 
Judge Holmes, 410—413 ; Lord 
Campbell on the report of Plow- 
den, 413; the "Mermaid" in 
Bread-street the favourite resort of 
the poets of that day, 415 ; signi- 
ficant suppression by Lord Camp- 
bell of an extract reflecting on the 
English judiciary, 418. 

Halliwell (Mr.), 18, 35, 84, 464. 

Harness, Eev. W., 8, 21. 

Harsnet's (Dr.) book, " Discovery of 
Popish Impostors," and the Star- 
key or Starchy case, 381. 

Hazlitt on " Coriolanus," 292, 460. 

«' Henry lY.," Parti., Falstaff" intro- 
duced as a foil to Prince Henry, 
196; the play a continuation of 
political history, ih. ; the legal 
Points, 197. 

. Part II., probable date 

of its production, 199 ; the treacher- 
ous, shameful deed in the Fourth 
Act passed over without censure by 
the poet, 204 ; the immorality and 
obscenity of some scenes conclusive 
against the Baconian Theory, 206. 

" Henry Y.," its date proved by the 
reference to Essex in the Fifth 
Chorus, 207 ; remarks of Hunter, 
Schlegel, Knight, Gervinius, and 
' Kenny, 207—209 ; Shakespeare's 
reverent mention of the Catho- 
lic religion, 210, 215 ; extract 
significant of the poet's want of 
sympathy with the commonalty, 
119. 



" Henry YI.," Part I., Its doubtful 
authorship, 220 ; the total absence 
of any sympathy with the common 
people throughout these plays, 221 ; 
his ungenerous portraiture of Joan 
of Arc, 221. 

Part II., Shakespeare's 

want of liberalism exhibited in his 
perversion of the history of Jack 
Cade, 227, 244 — 254; the cruel 
caricature of Cade by Shakespeare 
has prevented other poets from 
doing justice to a patriot's memory, 
254. 

Part III. — Shakespeare 



treats crime as the privilege of 
kings and nobles, and the inherit- 
ance of the poor, 256 ; the legal 
acquirements of Shakespeare as 
shown in the Histories of the 
Henries, 257. 

"Henry YIII." — Dispute as to the 
date of its production, 267 _; Cran- 
mer's speech possibly an interpo- 
lation, 268; Buckingham, Queen 
Katharine, Wolsey, and Cranmer, 
269—275 ; Shakespeare's portrait 
of Henry YIII. a painful perver- 
sity of genius, 275 ; his reverent 
treatment of Queen Katharine, 
276. 

Holmes (Judge) supports the Baco- 
nian Theory, 13, 17, 67, 195; Case 
of Hales v. Petit as stated by Judge 
Holmes, 410—413. 

Hunter (Joseph), 160, 178, 339, 384, 
397. 



I. 



Identity of style in Shakespeare's 
Epitaph with the lines on Timon's 
tomb, 291. 

Importance of Shakespeare's teach- 
ing to the Euling Classes in Great 
Britain, 6, 7. 



Johnson (Dr.), on "Henry YIII., 
68; note on Bertram, 155; on 
Shakespeare's Comedies, 175 _; oq 
his being touched for the King's 
Evil, 329, note ; on " Cymbeline," 
337 ; severe criticism on our poet, 
460. 



468 



Index. 



Jonsou (Ben), on Shakespeare's learn- 
ing, 22 ; testimony to Shakespeare, 
31, 460. 

"Julius Csesar," 345; the character 
of Brutus shows no exception to 
Shakespeare's usual indifference 
to true liberty, nor does it exhibit 
any sympathy with the people, 347 ; 
Patricians and Plebeians, 348 ; 
Csesar, 350 ; death of Caesar, 358. 



K. 



Zenny (Thomas), on "Macbeth," 330; 
on " Hamlet," 396—399. 

" King John," 177 ; remarks of 
Hunter and Gervinius, 178 ; 
Shakespeare's laudations of the 
great, 179; his legal acquire- 
ments, 180. 

" King Lear," probable date, 377 ; 
its accumulated horrors, 378; some 
of Shakespeare's characters too 
wicked to be human, 380; Dr. 
Harsnet's book and the episode of 
the Starchy Family, 381—384; 
Shakespeare's self-plagiarism, 387 ; 
the only instance of our poet ac- 
cording courage and worthy pur- 
pose to a common man, 392; 
Catholic evidences, ih. ; Shake- 
speare's legal acquirements, 393 — ■ 
396. 

King's (Thomas D.) " Bacon versus 
Shakespeare : a Plea for the Defen- 
dant," 462 ; on Warwickshire say- 
ings and Stratford people, 462 — 
464. 

Knight (Charles), 9, 16 ; his evi- 
dences of Shakespeare's Protest- 
antism, 50 ; on " Henry V./' 208 ; 
on " Troilus and Cressida," 284 ; 
on " Coriolanus," 292 ; on " Titus 
Andronicus," 319. 



L. 



Learning of Shakespeare, 22. 

Legal acquirements of Shakespeare, 
71 ; first asserted by Chalmers, 
Malone, and others, 74; possibly 
may have served in an attorney's 
office, ib. ; opinion of Lord Camp- 
bell, ib.; direct evidence of Lord 
Campbell, and his illustrations 



from the Plays, 76 ; legal acquire- 
ments of Shakespeare as shown in 
his Histories of the Henries, 257 — 
260. See Campbell. 

Lofft (Capel) on the learning of 
Shakespeare, 22. 

" Love's Labour's Lost," one of the 
weakest of Shakespeare's produc- 
tions, 147 ; the female characters of 
the Beatrice and Katharine stamp, 
148 ; the significant introduction 
of the monastery, 149. 

Lucy (Sir Thomas) and Shakespeare, 
his severity to our poet, 21, note. 



M. 



Macaulay (Lord), on Bacon and 
Shakespeare, 14, 174. 

"Macbeth," date of production, 327; 
Shakespeare's flattery of King 
James in speaking of Edward the 
Confessor's touching for the King's 
Evil, 329 ; Dr. Johnson and the 
King's Evil, note 329; Lord 
Campbell and the legal acquire- 
ments of Shakespeare, 330. 

Malone on Shakespeare's learning, 
22 ; on his being an attorney's 
clerk, 74. 

" Measure for Measure," date of pro- 
duction, 95 ; remarks on its plot, 
96 ; Lord Campbell's instances of 
Shakespeare's law, 102 ; beauty of 
the character of Isabella, the Nun, 
104; Shakespeare exalts the Romish 
faith in the character of Isabella, 
ib. 

"Merchant of Venice (The)," date 
of production, 114 ; extract from 
Eowe, 116 ; German Commenta- 
tors, 117 ; Shakespeare's motive in 
writing the play was to cater to 
the common hatred of the Jews, 
118; his money-making nature, 
119 ; analysis of the moral charac- 
ter of the persons of the play, 120 ; 
Shylock's bond, 126 ; incident lead- 
ing to the trial; Portia's monas- 
tery, 127 ; the trial scene, 128 ; a 
jumble of legal absurdities and 
impossibilities, 133 ; Shakespeare's 
praise of kings, &c., 134. 

Mermaid Tavern, Meetings of the 
Wits and Poets at, 73, 415. 

"Merry Wives of Windsor (The)," 
tradition that it was written by 



Index. 



469 



order of Queen Elizabeth, 93 ; 
Shakespeare makes Sir Hugh 
Evans a Protestant buffoon, 94 ; 
Shakespeare's knowledge of Law, i6. 

" Midsummer Night's Dream," its 
supposed date, 110; legal and reli- 
gious allusions, ii. ; Shakespeare's 
low estimation of the mechanical 
and labouring classes illustrated in 
this play, 112 ; also his servility 
to rank and birth, 113. 

More's (Sir Thomas) " History of 
Richard III." quoted, 261. 

" Much Ado About Nothing," sources 
of its plot, 136 ; the good Eriar, 
ih. ; Shakespeare's Roman Catholic 
priests and female devotees chosen 
for the moral adjustment of his 
plots, 138 ; knowledge of law, ib. ; 
Dogberry's learning, ih. 



0. 



" Othello," date of production, 363 ; 
M. Guizoton this play, «6. ; analy- 
sis of the play, 364—370 ; Shake- 
speare's Roman Catholic tone, 
371; his legal acquirements, 374 
—376. 



Palmerston (Lord), a supporter of 
the Baconian Theory, 1, 4, 13, 
226, 457. 

" Pericles, Prince of Tyre," of doubt- 
ful authenticity, 322 ; portions un- 
doubtedly ShakespeHve's, 323 ; 
opinion of Gervinius, 325. 

Personal Characteristics of Shake- 
peare, 28 ; his death , 29 ; alleged 
to have arisen from a merry meet- 
ing with Ben Jonson and Drayton, 
ib. ; known as " The gentle Shake- 
speare," ih. ; tradition of his being 
the father of Davenant, 31 ; Ben 
Jonson, ih. ; Signatures of Shake- 
speare decisive on the copying 
theory, 32 ; his great knowledge 
of stage business, 33. 

I'uor (The) and the Working Classes, 
Shakespeare's want of sympathy 
with, 2 ; his Aristocratic tenden- 
cies and servility to rank, ih. ; 
seldom, if ever, permits the humble 
to escape him without a jest or 
saeer, 3, 

31 



Postscript.— Mr. T.D.King's "Bacon 

versus Shale espeare : a Plea for the 
Defendant," Montreal, &c., 462 ; 
Warwickshire phrases in Shake- 
speare's plays, 462; names of 
Stratford people in his plays, 464. 

Protestants, Shakespeare's contempt 
for, and the Protestant Faith, 62 
instances from his plays, 63 
Cranmer, the only exception, ih. 
his familiarity with the Bible — 
forbidden to Catholics — accounted 
for by his father necessarily pos- 
sessing one, 69 : his bitter hatred 
of Jews another evidence of his 
Romanism, 70. 

Purgatory, Shakespeare's belief in, 
69. 



Q- 



Queen Elizabeth, tradition that 
Shakespeare wrote the " Merry 
Wives of Windsor " at her request, 
93 ; Shakespeare's praise of grey 
eyes to flatter her, 163. 



R. 



Rebellion of Wat Tyler, 228—232 ; 
Rebellion of Cade, 232—239. 

Recapitulation and Conclusion, 455 ; 
The Euphonic or Musical Test, 
ih. ; the Religious test, 156 ; the 
Legal attainments of Shakespeare, 
ib. ; his misrepresentation of His- 
tory; his servility to rank, and 
contempt for mechanics, 459; 
severe censure of Dr. Johnson, 
460 ; Ben Jonson, Bagehot, Haz- 
litt, and Gervinius, 460; yet Shake- 
speare's merits outweigh his faults, 
461. 

Religion of the Shakespeare family, 
34; Will of his father, 35; his 
father generally believed by his 
biographers to be a Protestant, 
36 ; discovery of John Shake- 
speare's Confession of Eaith, 37 ; 
Chalmers, 38; contested by Knight, 
39 ; assertion of Davies that Shake- 
speare died a papist, ih.; Shake- 
speare's being a Roman Catholic 
disputed by Mr. White, 42 ; John 
Shakespeare's Confession of Faith, 
43—45. 

Religion of Shakespeare, 50 — 61 ; 
his Protestantism asserted by Mr. 



470 



Index. 



Charles Knight, 50; quotations 
from " King John " and " Henry 
VI.," Parts I. and II., tend to 
prove him to be a Roman Catholic, 
52—61 ; his hatred of the Jews, 
an oth er indication of his Romanism , 
70 ; further illustrations in his 
plays, 89, 105, 111, 138, 149, 157, 
163, 180, 241, 276, 339, 371, 374 
—376, 392, 401—406. 
Responsibilities of genius, 1 ; Shake- 
speare's great intellectual giits^ 
were never exercised in behalf of 
the poor, 3. 
" Richard II.," date of production, 
its popularity, 182 ; the conspiracy 
of theEarlof Essex, 2'5.;notthe play 
performed at Essex House, ib.; 
Gervinius on the character of the 
King, 184 ; Shakespeare's indif- 
ference to the sufferings of the 
people contrasted with his sym- 
pathy for kings and nobles, 183 ; 
Catholic tendencies in this play, 
185 ; Judge Holmes on Bacon 
being the author of this play, 195. 
" Richard III.," date of production, 
260: Sir Thomas More's portrait 
of Richard III., 261 ; the Catholic 
evidences, 263 ; English contempt 
for poverty, 265. 
" Romeo and Juliet," its early pub- 
lication, 338; tradition of Juliet's 
house at Verona, 339 ; strong evi- 
dence in this play of Shakespeare's 
Roman Catholic faith, 339—344 ; 
• Evening Mass, 341 ; beautiful 
character of Friar Laurence, 343 ; 
Shakespeare's legal acquirements, 
344. 
Rowe (N.), plot and sources of " The 
Merchant of Venice," 116. 



S. 



Shakespeare and Bacon morally com- 
pared, 8— 10 ; their respective re- 
ligious beliefs, 10. 

Shakespeare and Bacon, the latter a 
profound lawyer, while our poet 
violates all the congruities and 
philosophy of law, 457 ; refutes the 
Baconian Theory, ib. 

Shakespeare's contumelious mention 
of mechanics, peasants, &c., most 
conspicuous in the Historical 
Plays, 178—277; and in the 



Roman plays of " Julius Caesar,' 
and " Coriolanus," 312, 345. 

Shakespeare's apparent exception to 
the theory of invariable contempt 
for, or indifference to, the poor : 
in Adam, in "As you Like It," 
140 ; in Plavius, in " Timon of 
Athens," 290 ; and the Servant, in 
" King Lear," 392. 

Shakespeare's geographical blunders, 
and absurdity of some of his 
plots decisive against the Baconian 
theory, 92, 164. 

Shakespeare's ignorance of the Spirit 
and Philosophy of Law : see " Two 
Gentlemen of Verona," 91 ; "Mea- 
sure for Measure," 102; "The 
Merchant of Venice," 134; "The 
Winter's Tale," 170. 

Shakespeare's perverted presentation 
of the character of Henry VIII., 
275. 

Shakespeare's untrue and ungenerous 
presentation of the character of 
Jack Cade, 254. 

Smith (W. H.), a supporter of the 
Baconian Theory, 13 ; on the blun- 
ders in "Two Gentlemen of Ve- 
rona," 85. 

Smith (Dr. W.) on Plebeians and 
Patricians, 347—350. 

" Sonnets " of Shakespeare, evidence 
in them of his vehement attachment 
to some unknown lady of whom he 
was jealous, 368. 

Southampton (Lord), makes Shake- 
speare a present of lOOOZ., 11 ; con- 
nected with Essex's conspiracy, 12. 



" Taming of the Shrew (The)," date 
of its production, 145 ; The Induc- 
tion, ih. ; Lord Campbell's evi- 
dences in this play, 146. 

Taverner's (Prof. W.) Essay on the 
Respective Styles of Shakespeare 
and Bacon judged by the Laws of 
Elocutionary Analysis and "Me- 
lody of Speech," 424—454. 

The Baconian Theory, plays which 
seem to be decisive against it, 
" Two Gentlemen of Verona," 92 ; 
" Comedy of Errors," 109 ; " The 
Winter's Tale," 164 ; and the in- 
decency of the dialogue in the low 
comic scenes throughout the plays, 
172, 206. 



Index. 



471 



" The Tempest," date of its produc- 
tion, 81 ; extracts proving Shake- 
speare's love of the aristocratic 
class, and contempt for the lower 
orders, 82 ; possible origin of this 
feeling, 84. 

" Timon of Athens," supposed date 
of production, 288 ; Mavius, the 
Steward, the second instance of 
Shakespeare speaking of one of 
inferior rank with respect, 291 ; 
Timon's epitaph and Shakespeare's 
at Stratford compared, 292. 

" Titus Andronicus," its being Shake- 
peare's doubtful ; may be deemed 
his first play, 313 ; the plot full of 
the most horrible incidents, 314 — 

318 ; Gervinius on its authenticity, 

319 ; a slight variation of Shake- 
speare's in his speaking of the 
people, 322. 

" Troilus and Cressida," dispute as to 
the date of its production, 278; the 
Printer's Preface, 280 ; the Baco- 
nians on this play, 281 ; sources of 
the plot, 283 ; opinions of Coleridge 
and Knight, 284; its immorality 
makes it improbable that Bacon 
could be its author, 285 ; Shake- 
speare's legal acquirements, 286. 

" Twelfth Night ; or. What you Will," 
date of production, 160 ; Hunter 
on this play, ib.; the Puritans 
ridiculed in Malvolio, 161 ; extracts 



that tend to show that Shake- 
peare's marriage was a Roman 
Catholic one, 163 ; Shakespeare's 
praise of grey eyes in flattery of 
Queen Elizabeth, ih. 
" Two Gentlemen o£ Verona," one of 
Shakespeare's earliest Plays, 84; 
Dr. Johnson's opinion in favour of 
its being Shakespeare's, 85 ; its 
contradictions and incongruities, 
92. 

V. 

" Venus and Adonis," and " Lu- 
creece," dedicated to Lord South- 
ampton, 11. 

W. 

"Winter's Tale (The)," the latest 
written of Shakespeare's plays, 
164 ; its geographical blunders, ib.; 
jealousy its theme, 165 ; Sir Wil- 
liam Blackstone on a passage of 
this play, 165 ; beauty of the cha- 
racter of Perdita, 167 ; Autolycus, 
ib. ; Shakespeare's legal acquire- 
ments, 168. 

Y. 

Youth of Shakespeare, its irregulari- 
ties, 8, 9, 20, 21. 



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social life. Great wars and consequent revolutions have occurred, involving national changes 
of peculiar moment. The civil war of our own country, which was at its height when the 
last volume of the old work appeared, has happily been ended, and a new course of com- 
mercial and industrial activity has been commenced. 

Large accessions to our geographical knowledge have been made by the indefatigable 
explorers of Africa. 

The great political revolutions of the last decade, with the natural result of the lapse of 
time, have brought into public view a multitude of new men, whose names are in every 
one's mouth, and of whose lives every one is curious to know the particulars. Great bat- 
tles have been fought, and important sieges maintained, of which the details are as yet 
preserved only in the newspapers, or in the transient publications of the day, but which 
ought now to take their place in pennanent aud authentic history. 

In preparing the present edition for the press, it has accordingly been the aim of the 
editors to bring dowTi the information to the latest possible dates, and to furnish an accurate 
account of the most recent discoveries in science, of every fresh production in literature, and 
the newest inventions in the practical arts, as well as to give a succinct and original record 
of the progress of political and historical events. 

The work has been begun after long and careful preliminary labor, and with the most 
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the cost of their execution is enormous, and it is believed that they will find a welcome re- 
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